Years after Brexit: No more controls at the Gibraltar border

Years after the Brexit, Spain, the EU and Great Britain have agreed to avoid border controls between Gibraltar and Spain. The journey across the land border into the British overseas area should make it much easier. A customs model is introduced for goods to avoid the need for complex controls, according to a joint statement.

Every day 15,000 people from Spain cross the border in the morning towards Gibraltar to go to work and return in the evening. In addition, there are several million tourists a year.

If everyone was checked as if at an EU external border, the only transition would be hopelessly overloaded. According to the British government, there would have been a hard border without a new agreement in which each individual passport would have been checked.

A lot of encouragement for the agreement

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the agreement. She secured the integrity of the Schengen area and the EU internal market, the German wrote on X. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares spoke of a historical agreement. The last wall of continental Europe disappears.

British Foreign Minister David Lammy described the agreement as a breakthrough, which, after years of uncertainty, offers a practical solution. Together with the Gibraltar government, an agreement has been achieved that protects British sovereignty, supporting Gibraltar’s economy and enabling companies to plan in the long term.

Still controls at the airport

Gibraltar and Spanish officials are to continue checking at the Gibraltar airport. The Gibraltar’s authorities are still responsible for entry and maintaining public order in Gibraltar, according to London. Spanish officials are responsible for the integrity of the Schengen area-similar to the French police in the St. Pancras train station in London, where the Eurostar trains descend to Brussels and Paris.

The agreement must still be formally completed, signed and ratified. EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic said: « I am firmly convinced that this agreement will be ratified. »

People in Gibraltar were against Brexit

The British peninsula depends heavily on the EU internal market. At the Brexit referendum 2016, 96 percent of the 33,000 inhabitants voted Gibraltar to whereabouts in the EU.

With its low taxes, the territory is a financial and online gambling paradise-and for more than three centuries there has also been a bone of two between Madrid and London. The area, which is only about as large as the East Frisian island of Baltrum, was conquered by the United Kingdom in 1704. Spain views Gibraltar as an illegally occupied area.