Surrounded by fences and set against the dramatic backdrop of the Rock of Gibraltar, the frontier between Spain and Gibraltar has long set the pace of life in the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula, shuttling through as many as 30,000 cross-border workers and tourists on a daily basis.
News that border controls could be a thing of the past, following a last-minute New Year’s Eve deal between the UK and Spain, was met with wonder, relief and a heady dose of wariness on both sides of the land border.
“It’s a historic day,” said Juan Lozano, the president of an organisation that represents eight Spanish municipalities in the frontier area. “One that we’ll remember just as we remember the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.”
Hours before Gibraltar was poised to become the only land border marked by a hard Brexit, Madrid and London signed off on an agreement in principle that will allow the British territory to become part of the Schengen area.
Such a move could transform the area, Lozano told the Spanish news agency Efe. “It will make it possible for the fence that has divided two communities, and which we have suffered for 300 years, to disappear.”
Despite ceding Gibraltar to Britain in 1713, Spain has long sought to reclaim the territory. At times the border has become a pawn in the sovereignty dispute, most prominently in 1969 when the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco barricaded the border. The heavy iron gate was lifted 13 years later, giving way to tearful reunions of long-separated relatives.
In 2013, amid a dispute with Gibraltar over an artificial reef, Spain stepped up its checks at the border, triggering months of gridlock.
On Friday, as the UK marked its first day outside of the European Union’s regulatory framework, cameras set up at Gibraltar’s border crossing showed little traffic. The day had started off in confusion, with reports of passports being demanded to cross into Spain in lieu of official identity cards.
The chief minister of Gibraltar chalked it up to Brexit and the last-minute nature of the deal concerning the territory, as Spain had not yet been able to get permission from the European commission to allow British nationals to enter with only an identity card.
“An interesting irony that the issue today at the border … is not actually Spain, it’s the European commission. But not for long I hope,” Fabian Picardo told the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation.
In Gibraltar, the immediate relief of having avoided a hard border was laced with many questions that remain unanswered. “Any collective sigh of relief has to be tempered by the lack of knowledge of the precise arrangement,” said the opposition Gibraltar Social Democrats in a statement.
The party did not consider the deal to be legally binding, as it has yet to be formalised into a treaty by the European commission. “We welcome it for what it is – a first step which keeps the possibility of a safe and beneficial agreement alive and averts a hard Brexit.”
The demand for further details was echoed by the Together Gibraltar party, which holds one seat in Gibraltar’s parliament. In its statement responding to the deal, however, the party reserved its strongest words for the UK.
“The party would also like to remind the electorate that we find ourselves in this position because in June of 2016 the UK effectively threw Gibraltar to the lions,” it said.
It continued: “They ripped us out of the EU unwillingly, then proceeded to allow Spain a veto over our ability to access a trade deal, and eventually signed their own trade deal that left us to negotiate a deal with little or no leverage.”