EU and the United Kingdom, post-Brexit agreement

The United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) on Wednesday signed an agreement on the free movement of people and goods between British Enclava Gibraltar and Spain, a problem that remained suspended after Brexit, AFP reports.

This agreement, which must be ratified, is meant to suppress « all physical barriers, checks and controls on people and goods circulating between Spain and Gibraltar, » Brussels and London announced in a common statement.

He « is profitable for all and will bring legal security and peace to the persons and companies in the region, » stressed the European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic in front of the press.

The United Kingdom left the European Union in 2020, leaving the relationship between Gibraltar – historical, an important military base for the British – and the European Block.

At the end of 2020, Spain and the United Kingdom came to an extremis agreement, to maintain the freedom of circulation of people and the free movement of goods at the border between Spain and Gibraltar.

But the signing of a definitive agreement is late to materialize.

Almost 15,000 people, most of them Spaniard, pass the border every day to go to this British territory of about 34,000 inhabitants, to work there.

This agreement « brings a practical solution after years of uncertainty, » said the British Foreign Minister David Lammy.

Spain ceded the Gibraltar of the British Crown in 1713 in the Treaty of Utrecht, but since then it has never ceased to claim sovereignty on this territory, which generates regular tensions between Madrid and London.

Together with the protocol on the North Ireland agreed by London and Brussels in 2023, Gibraltar was the last British territory without an agreement to clarify his future relationship with the EU.