Officials from the Spanish region of Andalusia, which borders Gibraltar, have raised fears about the impact of Brexit on Spanish workers who travel across the border each day.
According to its submission to a report by the EU’s Committee of the Regions, “58.7 per cent of Spanish workers in Gibraltar will be affected” by migration changes once Britain leaves the bloc.
The Andalusia region is calling on the EU to “create a fund for areas especially affected by Brexit” – a prospect supported by a number of officials from European tourism hubs frequented by British holidaymakers.
Spain receives more than 12 million tourists from Britain each year and despite a series of anti-tourism protests last summer, Britons are the largest contributor to the Spanish tourist sector.
Alexander Goransson, lead analyst and tourism specialist at Euromonitor, warned a drop in UK tourists could pose a serious risk to Spanish businesses which rely on British holidaymakers.
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He said: “Tourism expenditure to Spain stood at £50billion (€55billion) in 2016.
“Some £12.7billion (€14billion) of that came from the UK – that’s 26 per cent.
“So we are actually the biggest contributor to the Spanish tourist economy.”
Meanwhile Mário Sérgio Quaresma Marques, an official from UK holiday hotspot of Madeira, wrote that the government of the autonomous region of Portugal “strongly recommends using European and other financial mechanisms, at regional and local level, to help offset the consequences for the outermost regions, as most of them and their municipalities will be affected by the UK’s departure from the EU.”
In the eastern Mediterranean, the demands for post-Brexit assistance are similar. Stavros Stavrinides, the official who responded to the Committee of the Regions questionnaire for the Strovolos municipality in Cyprus, wants a “special fund” to deal with post-Brexit budget discrepancies.
He wrote: “If the EU establishes a special fund for local cities and regions, it will be a good measure to avoid any negative consequences of Brexit in other EU countries.”
The proposed funds may need a series of sizeable cash injections to help certain areas most at risk of losing out from the withdrawal of Britain’s EU contributions.
Brussels faces a £9billion financial black hole from Britain’s EU exit and leading Brexiteers have been quick to point out that the EU must try to strike a post-Brexit free trade deal with Britain when negotiators from London and Brussels meet later this year to avoid further tourism losses.
Tory MP Bernard Jenkin said: “It is highly significant that other EU member states’ authorities are beginning to engage with the consequences of a no-deal Brexit because it is something that should concern them greatly.
“I think the pressure is mounting on the EU negotiators to deliver a sensible deal which disrupts as little as possible.”
Peter Bone, Tory MP for Wellingborough, said: “The EU needs to do a deal with us much more than we need to do a deal with them.
“That’s why it is very surprising to me that we have offered £39billion to allow them to sell £70billion more goods into this country each year than we sell to them.
“There will be a lot of pressure from companies within countries within the EU for their governments to do a trade deal.
“This points out why the likelihood of a trade deal is there – because it benefits them more than us.
“Everything points to doing a proper free trade deal with us, and I’m afraid it is only the posturing of the European elites and their governments that they are actually trying to do something that is against the interests of the people in the EU.
“So if this report helps shove the EU elite to do the right thing for the European Union and trade with us on a free trade basis then that’s all the better.“