Main Street in Gibraltar
Credit: Paul Grover
This was first published in The Telegraph’s Brexit Bulletin newsletter. For more analysis from The Telegraph’s unrivalled Brexit team, sign up to the Brexit Bulletin here and we’ll post it to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Another week in Brexit, another slew of warnings that the end is near.
With talks resuming in London, there was much chin-stroking that this would be the final week of negotiations and the last chance to avoid no deal.
The talks on the issues of fishing and the level playing field – including subsidy law and the deal’s enforcement – will probably drag on into early next week, ahead of a key EU summit on December 10.
The British are after, and confident of getting, a formal recognition that they are sovereign over UK waters and control access to them.
If EU leaders get what they want in terms of protecting their businesses from unfair competition, that should be forthcoming. It would not be a surprise if it was at that European Council summit that the final political compromise on fishing is found.
But the trade negotiations are not the only important international talks entering their endgame. The UK’s negotiations with Spain over Gibraltar’s post-Brexit transition period future have been overshadowed by the bouts in Brussels and London.
However, bilateral talks between Madrid and London have been rumbling on in the background and could have serious ramifications for The Rock’s future. Madrid has long contested sovereignty, an influential word in Brexit, over Gibraltar, which was ceded to Britain in 1713’s Treaty of Utrecht.
Any suggestion that sovereignty could be up for grabs in these negotiations has been swiftly shot down by sources in Britain and Gibraltar, where referendums have shown the people’s clear preference for remaining British.
The EU secured Spain an effective veto over whether the post-Brexit trade deal would apply to Gibraltar, which is a British Overseas Territory.
Soldiers from the Royal Gibraltar regiment march along Main Street. Referendums have shown the ' Gibraltarians' clear preference for remaining British
Credit: Paul Grover
Gibraltar imports all of its food, and about 15,000 people cross the border from Spain each day, making up half of the island’s workforce.
Without a trade deal, Gibraltar would face tariffs on trade from Spain, and cross-border movement of people and goods will be slowed. Last week, the Spanish foreign minister increased the pressure.
Arancha Gonzalez Lays said, “Negotiations between the United Kingdom and Spain also continue regarding Gibraltar, where time is also running out.
“We will not stop trying until the last minute and we wait for the active participation of the United Kingdom in this game to be able to reach an agreement before the end of this year.”
Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s First Minister, could have been speaking about the trade negotiations with Brussels when he said: “We are all working extraordinarily hard to secure an agreement. That does not mean that an agreement is easy.”
Among the ideas being discussed to keep trade and people flowing smoothly over Gibraltar’s borders is giving The Rock some kind of associate membership of the passport-free Schengen zone.
The UK was never a member of Schengen when it was an EU member state.
Ironically, Brexit could result in Gibraltar having closer ties to the EU than it did before Britain left the bloc.
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