Monday, 25 August 2025, 17:19
Barely two months after the United Kingdom and the European Union (under the guidance of Spain) signed the landmark agreement on Gibraltar’s new status after Brexit, on both sides of the border (locally known as La Verja), local residents and the more than 50,000 people who cross the border daily are still awaiting a definitive resolution to the dispute that has been dragging on since the implementation of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This dispute affects the daily lives of those living in towns in Cadiz such as La Línea de la Concepción, Algeciras and the British colony itself, as well as diplomatic relations between London and Madrid.
The UK’s withdrawal from the EU following the 2016 Brexit referendum was devastating for the ‘llanitos’ (the popular nickname for the inhabitants of Gibraltar), who had voted overwhelmingly to remain (96%). A period of arduous negotiations then began, with families and workers on tenterhooks over their future, as also happened in other places such as Northern Ireland and Scotland, which saw the benefits of being part of the EU stripped from them overnight.
That is why the pact, which continues to cause some misgivings among the mayors of the municipalities in the affected area as it has yet to be finalised, came as a relief. The document, hammered out over five years of negotiations and several failed rounds of talks between governments of different political persuasions, (since 2020 alone, have there been four UK prime ministers in the UK and just one PM for Spain, Pedro Sánchez), includes the free movement of people and goods, as is the case among the other EU countries. It also includes the deployment of Spanish border staff on the Rock to control the entry of passengers to the Schengen zone, shared use of the airport, commitments to a level playing field in terms of state aid, taxation, employment and the fight against money laundering.
13
years
with a closed border from 1969 to 1982 was a major blow to the local economy on both sides of the fence.
The diplomatic achievement, which Spain’s Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, applauded as “the demolition of the last wall in Western Europe” and which parts of the British press criticised as a “surrender” of the Rock to Spain, was overshadowed on 12 June by the revelation in the first paragraphs of the UCO report linking former PSOE number 3 Santos Cerdán to the ‘Koldo plot’ (bribery and corruption allegations). This development put a damper on the celebrations in Moncloa and sent shockwaves through the heart of central government.
Now Albares confirms that the agreement will be ready for autumn, pending the meeting between Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez and British PM Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street on 3 September. The meeting will focus on finalising an agreement that both agree is “a great opportunity”.
The Treaty of Utrecht
That said, harmony has never been the norm in relations between Madrid and London regarding Gibraltar. Part of the Crown of Castile since the second half of the 15th century, Gibraltar was occupied in 1704 by an Anglo-Dutch fleet in support of the pretender Charles of Habsburg during the War of the Spanish Succession, after which it was ceded to the British Crown under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Since then, the political future of the colony has been the subject of controversy even within Spanish borders.
As an example of this, in March 1917, General Miguel Primo de Rivera, then military governor of Cadiz, proposed in his inaugural address to the Hispano-American Academy that Gibraltar be exchanged for Ceuta, a controversial idea that cost him his expulsion from the institution barely a month later.
During the Franco regime, the Gibraltar issue was a central theme in Spanish foreign policy, with Franco demanding the return of the territory and inciting nationalist fervour by mentioning the Rock in such speeches. This policy reached its peak with the closure of the border separating Spain from Gibraltar in 1969, a measure that had serious economic consequences for both sides.
Nine years after Brexit
Spain’s Foreign Minister confirms the final agreement on the Rock’s new status will be ready in the autumn
After the dictator’s death, it was not until 14 December 1982, with Felipe González as Spain’s Prime Minister, that the pedestrian blockade was lifted. Even then the situation would not return to normal until the signing of the Cordoba Agreement on 18 September 2006 between Gibraltar, the United Kingdom and Spain. The Spanish government, led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, agreed to relax border controls, facilitating the passage of citizens and transportation between the two territories. The British government, for its part, would increase pensions for Spanish workers who had lost their jobs in Gibraltar between 1969 and 1982.
Brexit took the residents of this area back to the hardship of those years and made finding a solution crucial. Spain, for its part, still refuses to renounce its sovereignty over the Rock.