The sigh of relief travelled from the craggy ridges of the Rock to the thousands of cross-border workers scattered across southern Spain. In December 2020, hours before Gibraltar was facing the implementation of a hard border after Brexit, officials in Madrid and London said they had signed a draft agreement aimed at bringing Gibraltar into the Schengen area.
But more than two years on and with no final deal in sight, that sense of relief has ebbed away across Gibraltar’s 2.6 sq mile land mass. As Spain heads into a snap general electionon Sunday, uncertainty is again racking the Rock.
“I’m exhausted,” said Brian Reyes, editor of the Gibraltar Chronicle. “We’ve been doing this since [the Brexit vote in] 2016 and it’s just one twist after another, in a place that voted 96% to stay in the EU.”
Polls suggest that the conservative People’s party (PP) is poised to win the Spanish election but that it could need support from the far-right Vox party to govern. If so, the fate of Gibraltar’s 32,000 residents could depend on a Spanish government that will offer the far right its first taste of national power since the dictatorship of General Franco.
For Gibraltar, the timing could not be worse. “The danger is that the only British territory attached to mainland Europe will choke on the hardest of Brexits,” Reyes wrote soon after the snap election was called. “People and businesses who rely on border fluidity for their livelihoods will become pawns in a 300-year tussle, precisely the scenario that negotiators have been working so hard to avoid.”
The UK and the EU have held more than a dozen rounds of talks on Gibraltar’s post-Brexit status, seeking to sidestep the centuries-old sovereignty dispute and focus instead on shared concerns such as the more than 15,000 workers who cross into Gibraltar each day from Spain.
Throughout the talks, traffic has flowed easily back and forth, reflecting a promise by Spain’s Socialist-led government to maintain mobility across the border during negotiations.
The talks have stalled on the question of who will carry out checks on travellers who arrive at the airport in Gibraltar; Spain insists that, as the sponsoring Schengen member, the responsibility falls to the Spanish police. The UK wants Frontex, the EU border agency, to take on the role.
That dispute reflects the long, chequered history between Spain and Gibraltar, said Andrew Canessa, a professor at the University of Essex and author of a 2019 book that explores Gibraltar’s national identity.
In 1969, the Franco dictatorship abruptly slammed the border shut, choking off many people’s livelihoods and leaving members of divided families shouting to one another across the border fence. “It goes back to a real deep mistrust of Spain and the Spanish when it comes to issues about the border,” said Canessa.
While the border was fully opened again in 1985, as a condition of Spain’s entry to the EU, the scars remain, said Canessa. “It’s a lot more than just a border,” he said. “It’s not just a physical border, it’s a mental, cultural, social and historical border.”
In Madrid, Gibraltar had often been seen as a political tool that could be used to whip up nationalist sentiment, said Jesús Verdú Baeza, a law professor at the University of Cádiz.
In 2013, the PP – incensed by Gibraltar’s construction of an artificial reef that it said was harming Spanish fishing interests – triggered a crisis described as the worst since Franco’s border closure. Amid accusations that Spain had stepped up border checks, waiting times at the border rose to as much as six hours.
While some described the row as a fabricated attempt to distract Spaniards from an economic crisis, the PP raised the stakes, telling local media that it was considering a €50 fee for vehicles entering or leaving the Rock alongside measures such as closing Spanish airspace to flights heading to Gibraltar.
The precedent hints at a PP strategy in which Gibraltar is a rallying point for its base, said Verdú Baeza. “Polarisation on issues related to Gibraltar has always suited the right. They’ve always used it as a cover to hide other types of problems.”
The party – led by a man often described as a moderate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo – says in its manifesto that it plans to continue talks with London, seeking to “address the process of decolonisation of Gibraltar and the recovery of sovereignty”; and that in addition it will “defend Spanish fiscal, financial, environmental and security interests, as well as pay special attention to the circulation of people”.
Verdú Baeza described the line on recovering sovereignty as worrying, particularly as polls suggest the PP may end up in a coalition where it could be pulled to the extreme right by Vox. “I would be very concerned that an eventual rightwing government would seek to block the treaty over ideological interests that are weighed down by – let’s say it clearly – vestiges of Francoism.”
In the lead-up to regional and municipal elections in May, Santiago Abascal, Vox’s leader, argued that any deal with the UK that did not recognise Spanish sovereignty over the British territory would be “an act of betrayal against Spain”.
Belligerence against Gibraltar has been part of the party’s playbook since it was launched in 2013 by disenchanted former PP members. In 2016, it unfurled a huge Spanish flag on the Rock, while a barrage of social media posts described the territory as a “leech”, “parasite” and “den of money launderers”, prompting Gibraltarian officials to file a criminal complaint in 2019.
When asked about the Spanish election, the government of Gibraltar said in a statement that it remained “fully committed to the negotiations”, and added it would “work with whoever is elected into office in Spain”.
It also sought to highlight what is on the line for Spain, pointing to the Spanish nationals who cross into the territory regularly for work: “Indeed, Gibraltar purchases over €1.5bn worth of goods from companies across the border and is the second largest employer for the Spanish region of Andalucía, after its regional government.”
Officials in the territory have long been preparing for a breakdown in talks; last November, 19 departments and agencies, along with the UK’s Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, held a six-hour exercise to simulate a no-deal scenario, while businesses have been warned they may have to stagger shifts in order to ease border flows, and build local accommodation for key workers.
Even so, many will be keeping a close watch over Sunday’s elections, hopeful that Madrid and London will be able to complete the talks regardless of who might end up in power, said Reyes.
“The headlines are always about rows at sea, and rows here, but … actually, the reality on the ground is that there’s a lot of close interaction,” he said, pointing to cooperation on many activities, from sport to culture. “And that is the reality on the ground that people on both sides of the border are desperate to protect.”
