Nine years ago, Gibraltar voted by 96% to 4% to remain in the European Union. However, the UK’s simultaneous 52% to 48% leave vote meant Gibraltarians were denied their own will. As the only British overseas territory sharing a land frontier with the EU’s border-free Schengen travel area, and as the focus of a territorial dispute with Spain dating from 1713, this change threatened Gibraltar’s position with a new impasse. The economy of the Rock, heavily dependent on the 15,000 mainly low-wage Spanish residents who routinely cross the border to work there each day, faced an existential danger.
Since 2016, officials from Gibraltar, Britain, Spain and the EU have intermittently attempted to resolve the problems. For years, the process was glacial, and occasionally petulant. In Boris Johnson’s rush to leave the EU, the issue was simply ignored. As recently as 2023, a hard border between Gibraltar and Spain was said to be unavoidable. This week, however, a much better deal was finally sorted. Though the detailed text has yet to be published, it appears to offer the kind of frictionless border crossing on which Gibraltar and the surrounding area depend, as well as being emblematic of the pragmatic reset with Europe being pursued by Sir Keir Starmer’s government.
