On the 4th, the Gibraltarian government announced the issue of a stamp commemorating the 320th anniversary of the capture of the Rock by the Anglo-Dutch fleet, supposedly not to take it from Spain but to put it at the service of Archduke Charles of Austria, who was fighting the Bourbons in the War of Succession. Two weeks earlier, the same government had described the chants of “Gibraltar is Spanish!” sung during the celebration of the Spanish national team’s victory in the European Championship as “stale” and “offensive”.

The dispute over the British colony, which has been defused in recent years through dialogue and negotiation, seems to be slipping back into a drift of “affronts and challenges,” as Gibraltarian authorities described the entry of a Guardia Civil patrol boat into waters disputed with the United Kingdom on July 30. “The nationalist drum is the easiest to beat here.” [en Gibraltar] and there [en España]”, acknowledged the chief minister of the Rock, Fabian Picardo, to the local newspaper at the beginning of June Gibraltar Chronicle.

Sources at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs stress that “80% of the future treaty that will regulate relations between the colony and the European Union after Brexit has already been agreed”, although they recognise that “the most sensitive 20% is missing”. After having unsuccessfully tried to conclude the negotiation in two high-level meetings with the then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, David Cameron, and the European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, held on 12 April and 15 May in Brussels, the Spanish minister José Manuel Albares hopes to resume talks after the summer with his new British counterpart, the Labour Party member David Lammy.

However, although Albares and Lammy agreed to “work from now on” to reach an agreement when they met for the first time on July 7 on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, the Spanish Foreign Ministry is not as optimistic as it was a few months ago. The obstacle is not so much seen in the new British government, but in the Gibraltarian one. “While Albares has been warning public opinion for months that they will have to cut corners to reach an agreement, Picardo has not prepared the Gibraltarians themselves for the concessions that are inevitable,” say sources close to the minister.

The alarm bells rang last April when, in a written response to several PP senators, the Government recalled that control to enter Gibraltar once the agreement is reached will correspond, according to the border code of the Schengen area – which includes 23 EU countries, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, but not the United Kingdom – to the National Police, while the agents of the European border agency Frontex will exercise “an auxiliary function”. In addition, he pointed out, the Spanish police must “be able to move freely throughout the border area” and provide service “in uniform” and “carrying weapons”. Picardo reacted angrily, assuring that the presence of armed and uniformed Spanish agents on the soil of the colony had not been raised at the negotiating table and that it constituted a “red line” for him. “There will be no Spanish boots on the ground,” he concluded.

Several vehicles wait their turn at Gibraltar’s border control on Monday.MARCOS MORENO

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In fact, the presence of the Spanish police in Gibraltar was already agreed in the 2020 New Year’s Eve agreement between the then Spanish Foreign Minister, Arancha González Laya, and her British counterpart, Dominic Raab, although without going into details. “Spain and Gibraltar will carry out controls on people and luggage at the port facilities […] “Spanish and Gibraltarian officials will share offices in a facility at the airport created for this purpose,” specified the document accepted by Picardo at the time.

Government sources point out that Spain is responsible for controlling entry into the Schengen area, since the United Kingdom has not signed the treaty; that controls at the Spanish border would be transferred to the Rock’s port and airport if the agreement is signed; and that Picardo “cannot expect a special Schengen protocol for Gibraltar” and, much less, that “Spanish police officers on duty operate without weapons and without uniforms.”

Since the transition period provided for in the United Kingdom’s withdrawal agreement from the EU ended on 1 January 2021, Gibraltar has been, for all intents and purposes, the territory of a third country and the line separating the British colony from the Peninsula, an external border. However, the expectation that an agreement would be reached that would involve the demolition of La Verja and the free movement of people and goods across the isthmus left the situation of the British colony in limbo.

Although the Schengen agreement requires that British citizens cannot cross its borders without stamping their passport and justifying the reason for their trip, nor extend their stay for more than 90 days in a three-month period, Gibraltarians have been able to cross to this side of the border, where many have their second residence, for the last 43 months without any requirement other than showing their Gibraltarian identity card.

This situation will change in November, when the new Schengen Entry/Exit System (SES) comes into operation, which will involve scanning passports and recording barometric data (fingerprints and facial image), which both Gibraltarian citizens and British residents in Gibraltar will have to undergo. In addition, in mid-2025, the ETIAS system will be launched, which will require nationals of all third countries for which a visa is not required for short-term visits, such as the United Kingdom, to request prior authorization to enter the Schengen territory. This is a model similar to ESTA, the permit that must be requested online before traveling to the United States.

The implementation of these new systems is in line with a timetable for all external borders of the Schengen area and is not related to the stalemate in the three-party negotiations (Spain, the United Kingdom and the European Commission) on Gibraltar. However, Spanish diplomatic sources do not hide the fact that it will put an end to the current situation of “illegality” and will serve to gradually introduce controls that will have to be applied in any case if an agreement is not reached.

“The problem is that Picardo compares the current situation, in which he has all the advantages and no disadvantages, with the cost of an agreement with Spain; when the correct thing to do is to compare it with a no-deal scenario,” they stress. A situation more similar to the one that existed before Spain joined the EU in 1986. If the agreement is concluded on the negotiated terms, all residents of the Rock will be exempt from submitting to the SES and ETIAS, but until that happens, if it happens, both will have to be applied.

At the moment, both sides are preparing for a NNO (No Negociated Outcome or divorce without agreement) and planning new infrastructures on the border in case La Verja, instead of being torn down, has to be reinforced. The effects of the NNO could be partially mitigated with a bilateral agreement on border traffic with the Rock, but both parties doubt that the climate is conducive to this after a failure that would leave deep wounds and misgivings. For the Spanish Executive, the change of tenant at 10 Downing Street and the push of the new British Government may be the last opportunity before, in the autumn, the new controls are imposed at La Verja and Commissioner Sefkovic, who until now has represented the European Commission in the negotiations, leaves his post. This would mean missing a train that may never pass again.

People walk along the Gibraltar border on Monday.MARCOS MORENO