Brussels / LondonAgreement between Spain and the United Kingdom on Gibraltar in Brussels. The parties announced separately this Wednesday that after years of negotiations, they have reached an agreement regulating the Gibraltar agreement. border controls between the State and the Rock, the point that had so far blocked understanding even though It’s been more than five years since BrexitIn fact, this was the final piece of negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom following its departure from the EU in early 2020. It will therefore be the Spanish and Gibraltarian police who will control the perimeter of the Rock, through the airport and the surrounding area. This was one of the most sensitive points in the entire post-Brexit architecture for Gibraltar’s integration within the Campo de Gibraltar, which in practice was integrated into the free movement area. This keeps the famous fence with Spain open, which in fact remained open despite Brexit to facilitate the movement of the 15,000 workers who enter Gibraltar daily.
Madrid has preferred this option, which enables an “open Gibraltar in Spain,” according to diplomatic sources familiar with the negotiations, rather than entrenching itself on issues such as the claim to sovereignty, which was a non-negotiable point for London. The issue of sovereignty is especially relevant. And while it may raise accusations of surrender within the most extreme opposition in Spain—and also in the United Kingdom, for opposing reasons—the truth is that the wording of the pact is structured so that Morocco cannot invoke it to raise its traditional territorial claims to Ceuta and Melilla.
The agreement was announced after a meeting in the Belgian capital between the European Commissioner in charge of Brussels’ relations with London, Maroš Šefčovič; the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares; his British counterpart, David Lammy; and the Chief Minister of Gibraltar. This is the fourth meeting they have held in this format in recent months.
The return of a Labour government to the United Kingdom and the improved relations between London and Brussels in recent months have helped seal the pact. In fact, the EU and the British government signed an understanding for a new post-Brexit approach And Brussels took a crucial step this Tuesday to pave the way by removing Gibraltar from the list of tax havens. Appearing on this group of EU third-party countries, while not entailing sanctions, requires European financial institutions to apply more controls to operations and transfers carried out by entities established on the Rock.
Spanish diplomatic sources consider the pact the culmination of a process that has seen other milestones before. Such as the financial protocol, already ratified, which obliges Gibraltar to provide Spain with all tax information on its activity in the region and also requires all companies based on the Rock, but with a majority of Spanish capital or shareholders, to pay taxes in Madrid. “Gibraltar no longer poses any tax risk to Spain,” these same sources assure.
Furthermore, in previous meetings, the four parties had already announced rapprochements, and in the moments leading up to the meeting, all authorities had expressed optimism. Gibraltar’s prime minister had already stated in statements to the media that an agreement was “closer than ever.”
The closing of the pact confirms the positive momentum in relations between Madrid and London. In fact, the United Kingdom was the main investor in the state last year (€12 billion), a presence that is offset by the presence of numerous Spanish companies involved in the British productive sector, including Indra, Acciona, and Dragados, among others.
Madrid’s objective is to further deepen these relations. And, anticipating that an agreement would arrive sooner or later, both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Foreign Office had been working for some time on a memorandum to establish a framework agreement for bilateral relations.