UK and Gibraltar near post-Brexit settlement on border with Spain

[ad_1] The UK and Gibraltar are on the point of an settlement which might see Eurostar-style twin border controls carried out on the territory’s airport.

David Lammy, the international secretary, and Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, are assembly EU and Spanish negotiators in Brussels at present in a bid to get the deal over the road.

The UK and Spain have been engaged in on-off negotiations for 4 years over Gibraltar’s land border with Spain. The talks have been centered on permitting free motion between two territories by seeing Gibraltar enter the EU’s passport-free Schengen space.

Beneath the phrases of the settlement being thrashed out on Wednesday, travellers arriving at Gibraltar airport would present their passports to British and Spanish border officers.

The system would mirror the one in place for Eurostar travellers at St Pancras airport, the place travellers undergo British and French passport management earlier than boarding trains to the continent.

Lammy and Picardo are resulting from meet Maroš Šefčovič, the European Fee vice-president, and José Manuel Albares, the Spanish minister for international affairs, in Brussels on Wednesday in a bid to finalise the deal.

British and Gibraltarian ministers held a gathering on Wednesday morning “to agree remaining parameters for negotiation”, Picardo stated on X on Wednesday.

“It’s time to attempt to finalise preparations for [a] lasting, steady relationship between Gibraltar and the EU/Spain which is secure, safe and useful and which protects our individuals and provides certainty to frontier employees with a view to delivering extra prosperity for all in our a part of the world,” he wrote.

A UK authorities official stated: “We’re not going to Brussels to rubber stamp a deal. Exhausting negotiations within the room forward on quite a lot of sticking factors.”

A Spanish international affairs ministry supply stated: “Our want, as ever, is to make as a lot progress as doable and to succeed in a deal as quickly as doable.”

An estimated 15,000 individuals cross the land border between Gibraltar and Spain daily. At current, Gibraltar residents can cross utilizing residence playing cards with out having their passports stamped, and Spanish residents can cross utilizing a authorities ID card.

The deal would permit 1000's of Spanish employees to proceed coming into the British territory with out checks, and Gibraltar residents to regain the liberty of motion with the EU which they'd earlier than Brexit.

However the settlement is more likely to come underneath assault by the Conservatives and Reform UK as a result of it might imply UK residents arriving on the British territory must present their passports to Spanish border guards.

The Conservatives got here near hanging a deal on border checks in Gibraltar this time final yr however the talks in the end collapsed with out a conclusion.

Albares warned final month that the Gibraltar border situation would should be settled if Keir Starmer’s authorities wished to pursue a more in-depth relationship with the EU.

Gibraltar is a British abroad territory on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula, the place it shares a border with Spain. It has been dominated by Britain since 1713, however is self-governing in all areas besides defence and international coverage. Spain claims sovereignty over the territory, however Gibraltar’s 1969 structure states that there may be no switch of sovereignty to Spain towards the needs of locals.