Spain has threatened the UK with a hard border on Gibraltar unless it accepts Madrid’s “generous” post-Brexit deal, which would mean Spanish troops stationed on the Rock.
José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, gathered regional authorities and journalists in Andalusia, which borders Gibraltar, weeks before the introduction of the European Union’s digital border system.
A proposed deal between the EU and the UK would result in Gibraltar being included within the Schengen area, dispensing with the land border.
But Madrid has insisted that its security forces would have to be present to police arrivals to Gibraltar’s airport and port.
Mr Albares said that although the new border control system had nothing to do with the Gibraltar agreement, it would affect thousands of residents on both sides of the border.
He warned the system would mean non-EU citizens, including Britons residing in Gibraltar, would only be able to spend 90 days in Spain every 180 days, unless a deal was reached.
Residents would also have to explain to border guards why they wanted to enter.
Since Brexit, Spanish border guards have allowed residency cardholders to enter and leave Spain without stamping their passports or using their 90-day travel limit. In return, 15,000 Spanish workers have also been able to enter Gibraltar easily.
“It is the UK that now has to choose whether it wants a system of restriction of movement for the people of Gibraltar or the generous and balanced deal on offer,” Mr Albares said on Wednesday.
Mr Albares underlined that Spain was seeking a deal on free movement at the Gibraltar border “but without renouncing our position on sovereignty”.
Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, has insisted he would not accept “Spanish boots on the ground”.
Gibraltar’s government previously warned it could retaliate with its own new controls if no deal was agreed with the EU, raising the risk of delays on the land border.
Spain views Gibraltar as a colony, a status that is incompatible with international law as laid down by the United Nations. Madrid also disputes the British territory’s occupation of the 800-metre isthmus that links the Rock with Spain.
Madrid’s increasing pressure on the UK to accept its terms comes after Sir Keir Starmer gave up the Chagos Islands, a UK overseas territory since 1965 known officially as the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Speaking at PMQs on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said the sovereignty of Gibraltar, as well as the Falkland Islands, was not up for negotiation.
Mr Albares met David Lammy, his British counterpart, twice last month, leading to what both sides called “further progress” on movement of people and goods.
An in-principle agreement reached in 2020 said that the EU border agency Frontex would be in charge of the new Schengen border at Gibraltar’s airport and port, but Spain insists that its security forces must lead the security operation.
Mr Picardo said earlier this week that Gibraltar and the UK had proposed “imaginative and sovereignty neutral solutions” to solve the security conundrum at a joint-use airport.
“The ball is, therefore, very much in Spain’s court,” he said.
