Unlock the Editor’s Digest totally free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly publication.
The UK has agreed to permit Spanish officers to test passports at Gibraltar’s airport and port in return for an open land crossing into Spain, in a long-awaited deal on the British territory’s standing after Brexit.
The concession by London ended one of many final points created by Brexit, and paved the way in which for the announcement on Wednesday of an settlement between the UK, EU and Spain on Gibraltar’s frontier.
It got here after UK international secretary David Lammy flew to Brussels from Gibraltar on Wednesday for talks together with his Spanish counterpart José Manuel Albares and EU Brexit commissioner Maroš Šefčovič.
Gibraltar had been in limbo since early 2020 when Brexit got here into impact, with London, Brussels and Madrid unable to agree on border points that had infected UK-Spain tensions over the territory’s disputed sovereignty.
The UK — backed firmly by Gibraltar’s chief minister Fabian Picardo — had resisted the presence of Spanish border police on its territory.
Nevertheless, Spain and the EU insisted Spanish police on the airport had been the value the UK needed to pay for an open land border between Gibraltar and Spain, which in impact makes the territory a part of the EU’s Schengen free-travel zone.
In a joint assertion on Wednesday, the UK, EU and Spain mentioned: “For the EU, full Schengen checks shall be carried out by Spain. For the UK, full Gibraltar checks will proceed to be carried out as they’re right now.”
Albares, Spain’s international minister, mentioned the Spanish police would be capable of flip away British passport holders, for instance if that they had already hit a 90-day post-Brexit restrict on the time they will keep within the EU each 180 days.
“The Spanish police will assure the complete integrity of the Schengen space and naturally Gibraltar is related with the Schengen zone,” Albares mentioned.
He mentioned the “historic accord” would “profit above all of the 15,000 individuals who every single day transfer between Gibraltar and [Spain]”.
Lammy mentioned the settlement “protects British sovereignty, helps Gibraltar’s economic system and permits companies to plan for the long-term as soon as once more”.
Referring to the UK’s earlier Conservative administration, he mentioned the Labour authorities “inherited a state of affairs from the final authorities which put Gibraltar’s economic system and lifestyle below menace. In the present day’s breakthrough delivers a sensible resolution after years of uncertainty.”
