BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – While the corks appeared in London and Brussels at the end of a four-year saga known as Brexit, there is still a rocky British soil.
Gibraltar, a British colony emerging from the southern tip of the Spanish mainland, was not included in the Brexit trade agreement announced on Christmas Eve between the European Union and the United Kingdom to reorganize trade and trade relations between the current 27-member bloc and the first nation to he left the group.
The deadline for Gibraltar remains 1 January, when a transitional period governing the short border between Gibraltar and Spain expires. If no agreement is reached, there are serious concerns that a hard border would disrupt workers, tourists and major trade connections on both sides.
Spain has managed to persuade the EU to separate the Gibraltar issue from the larger Brexit negotiations, which means Madrid is handling all talks directly with its Gibraltar and London counterparts.
Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya said on Thursday that if no agreement is reached, it fears that the long lines of blocked truck drivers seen on the English Channel last week could be repeated.
“We don’t have much time, and the scenes of chaos in Britain must remind us that we must continue to work to reach an agreement on Gibraltar,” González Laya told Spanish state broadcaster RTVE. “The Spaniards want one, the people of Gibraltar want one, now the United Kingdom must want it too. It takes political will. “
During talks on Brexit, Spain insisted it wanted to say about Gibraltar’s future.
The rock was ceded to Britain in 1713, but Spain never gave up its claim to sovereignty over it. For three centuries, the strategic outcrop of the highlands gave the British navy control of the narrow sea route from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean.
“Neither side will give up its claims to sovereignty, but we must put this aside to reach an agreement that will make life easier for those living on both sides of the border,” said González Laya.
More than 15,000 people live in Spain and work in Gibraltar, representing about 50% of Gibraltar’s workforce. A population of about 34,000 people in Gibraltar was overwhelming against Britain leaving the European Union. In the UK’s Brexit referendum in 2016, 96% of Gibraltar voters said they remained in the continental bloc, believing it gave them more leverage to deal with the Madrid government.
The territory still remembers how, in 1969, the Spanish dictator, General Francisco Franco, closed the border in an attempt to destroy Gibraltar’s economy.
Gibraltar’s Prime Minister Fabian Picardo said the post-Brexit trade agreement “is a huge relief, given the potential difficulties that a Brexit without an agreement could have created for the UK and the European Union”.
But he added that his territory is still in danger.
“This agreement does not cover Gibraltar. For us and for the people of Campo de Gibraltar who surround us, the clock is still ticking, “Picardo said in a statement.
“We continue to work, hand in hand with the United Kingdom, to finalize negotiations with Spain on an agreement for a proposed EU-UK treaty on Gibraltar,” he said.
Picardo recently told Spanish radio station Cadena SER that “a Schengen-style agreement would be the most positive result” to facilitate the annual crossing of the 30 million border between Gibraltar and Spain.
The Schengen area in Europe is made up of about two dozen nations that have agreed to remove general group travel controls from the group, although some local controls have been reintroduced due to the pandemic. The United Kingdom is not part of the Schengen group.
The government of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also said it is committed to finding a solution that includes “ensuring the fluidity of borders, which is clearly in the interest of communities living on both sides”.
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