Almost a decade after the Brexit referendum, the EU, UK and Spain have moved forward with a treaty to end Gibraltar’s legal limbo.
The EU, UK, and Spain have taken another step forward on finalising the bloc’s post-Brexit relationship with Gibraltar, six months after the parties announced the end of negotiations.
It was back in June that the EU announced that it had come to an agreement with the UK, Spain and Gibraltar, tying up the last loose end of the Brexit process some five years after the UK formally left the block and almost a decade after the referendum vote.
Though the finalising of the text represents another step towards the ratification of a future treaty, although it is not yet definitive and still requires final approval before ratification and entering into force.
This next step in Gibraltar’s Brexit process comes amid a wider reset of UK relations with Europe. In recent days, it was announced that the UK is set to rejoin the EU’s Erasmus scheme from 2027.
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“The text is currently undergoing legal review by the European Union and the United Kingdom before proceeding with the respective internal procedures for the signing and conclusion of the future agreement,” an EU source told Europa Press after confirming that the legal text was “completed” on December 12th.
The conclusion of the legal text comes nine and a half years after the UK left the bloc despite 96.7 percent of Gibraltarian voters opting to remain.
Gibraltar describes the conclusion of negotiations as “positive” and reiterates that the final text will be transparent and open to the various state-level legislatures: “We remain committed to transparency. The final treaty will be made public and will be subject to full scrutiny by the parliaments of Gibraltar, the United Kingdom and the EU as part of the ratification process,” a Gibraltar government spokesman told the Llanito press.
An EU spokesperson emphasised that the main objective of the future agreement is to “guarantee prosperity” for the entire region and that this will be achieved by “removing all physical barriers” to the free movement of people and goods between Spain and Gibraltar, “while preserving the borderless Schengen area, the Single Market and the Customs Union.
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“This will bring confidence and legal certainty to the lives and well-being of the inhabitants of the entire region by promoting shared prosperity”, he added.
Once the legal review by Brussels and London has been completed, for which there is no set deadline, the Treaty will still have to be translated into all official EU languages before it is submitted to the Council (governments) for adoption and the European Parliament votes on its consent.
With governments described as centre-left in both London and Madrid, the deal will also be heavily scrutinised by the right-wing in Britain and Spain.
This will be especially true among pro-Brexit Conservative and Reform MPs, but also on the Spanish right, for whom ‘The Rock’ is something of a blood and soil nationalist issue.
