So it seems like a deal has been done between the EU and the UK Government to allow Spanish border guards to assist in passport control within Gibraltar airport/seaports, in what they are calling “dual border control checks”, and likening to French police operating French border control in London’s St Pancras station for channel tunnel trains. This presumably means that the critical border will now be between Gibraltar and the outside world, but not between Gibraltar and Spain.
According to Sky, the UK government says the new agreement ‘avoids the need for checks on people and goods crossing the Gibraltar-Spain border, to support “prosperity in the region”.’ This is a very significant development. Not only will it speed up passage between Gibraltar and Spain for the 15,000 or so people who cross each day, and help to build greater economic prosperity, but it would appear to mean that those of us living here in Spain could now buy whatever goods we wanted, eg meat, cheese, etc at shops in Gibraltar and presumably bring them across the border in a way that we have not been able to since Brexit.
Read the story in SkyNews here. There is a similar story on the BBC here.
What is interesting is the lack of detail as to why Spanish border guards will form part of the new team at Gibraltar airport, instead of keeping their traditional post between Gibraltar and La Linea. But SkyNews gives us a clue when it says that “Spanish officials will be responsible for ensuring the integrity of the Schengen Area”. There can only be one conclusion, namely that under the new deal, Gibraltar will become part of the Schengen area.
And yet neither the BBC nor SkyNews have stated this as such. But Spanish news service, www.abc.es, has – in an article today, entitled “Acuerdo sobre Gibraltar, en directo: última hora del convenio entre el Reino Unido y la Unión Europea para incluir a Gibraltar en la zona Schengen”. Read this article here.
What is Schengen and why is it important? Schengen is a town in Luxembourg where an agreement was signed in 1985 and implemented in 1995, to abolish internal border controls in signature countries within Europe, allowing free movement of people, goods and services across their borders with one another. Much of the Schengen area is in the EU but some Schengen members are not (eg Norway, Switzerland) and one EU member state, Cyprus, is not in Schengen. And nor was either the UK or Gibraltar prior to Brexit.
The inclusion of Gibraltar in Schengen now as part of this new agreement is a victory for those who are keen to see growing trade between the Rock and southern Spain, but something of a blow for those who were more interested in protecting the UK’s sovereignty from any form of contamination with continental Europe.