The planned agreement on Gibraltar is already well advanced and could be concluded shortly. This was stated by the newspaper El País, which had access to the document establishing the basis for this future collaboration between Spain and the United Kingdom, and which will be in force once the final agreement has been reached. The document states that Gibraltar’s claims to sovereignty “are not modified” by this agreement or its subsequent development.
It adds that there will be a “double-key” system in British and Spanish hands for access to Gibraltar’s port and airport.
This “double key” means that, firstly, it will be Gibraltar that will decide whether to authorise the visitor’s entry, in accordance with its database; and subsequently it will be Spain that will give him access to the Schengen territory (into which Gibraltar is integrated) with the Schengen database.
Sources from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained that this text will be the basis for the negotiation of a future treaty between London and Brussels on Gibraltar, which has no deadline to be reached but which is well advanced and could be concluded in the coming months.
These same sources did not want to go into the demolition of the fence and added that this future agreement excludes everything relating to the sovereignty of the Rock, a point on which they pointed out that “Spain does not give up on its ambitions”.
This eight-page agreement which has been made available to El País, raises key issues such as:
- Checks, using European methods, will be carried out at Gibraltar airport, not at the border between Spain and Gibraltar.
- Implementation of specific taxes on products identified as sensitive in the pre-agreement: tobacco, alcohol or fuel.
- Cross-border workers will be treated equally to other employees from a bureaucratic point of view – because they are from the other country they, for example, cannot be forced to pay more taxes and they will be free to seek employment.
- The right of asylum (political or humanitarian refugees, for example) will apply independently for each territory, and will not involve the other.
- The United Kingdom will have an observer role in the Commission set up for this purpose, participating in the cross
