Eight years since Brexit was voted and more than three years since a pact on New Year's Eve gave Gibraltar extra time to avoid
in extremis
the consequences of an abrupt exit. Too much time of comings and goings in negotiation rounds for the more than 300,000 residents of the Rock and its Spanish surroundings to embrace with uncritical faith the announcement that the political agreement between the United Kingdom and Spain is closer. Unions, worker associations, businessmen and neighbors on both sides of the fence have welcomed this apparent consensus on “general political lines” coming from Brussels with a mixture of caution and skepticism.
“A step forward must be valued positively, but the uncertainty for the workers continues,” explained the general secretary of the Workers' Commissions in Campo de Gibraltar, Manuel Triano, shortly after the United Kingdom, Spain and the Commission European Union have released a joint statement announcing that they had reached white smoke on “the airport, goods and mobility.” However, the lack of specificity and detail about how the negotiations are going, the text that is being agreed upon or when it will be signed has left the high expectations with which the region faced this Friday at half speed.
Juan José Uceda, spokesperson for the Sociocultural Association of Spanish Workers in Gibraltar, has been making efforts not to get excited about the meeting since the Rock notified of the appointment. He saw it coming that, this time, it was not going to be the final one either. “We have no choice but to say that all the meetings make us happy, but they are followed by others that are the continuation of the same thing. We did not expect great progress from today's meeting [for this Friday], at least new possibilities continue to open and the dialogue is not entrenched," Uceda assesses with a certain bittersweet tone.
The agreement signed on New Year's Eve 2020 freed Gibraltar from being affected by the consequences of a hard Brexit, thanks to the memoranda in which the United Kingdom and Spain agreed to temporarily maintain the Rock's relations with its surroundings while they negotiated the treaty. In the 18 rounds of meetings, which began in October 2021, the discussion has gone through hot and cold moments, and has encountered important obstacles, especially related to the presence of Spanish police or Frontex at the airport and port, where they will border controls will be in place if the agreement comes to fruition.
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In all this time, the neighbors on both sides of the Gate have been scrutinizing the little that has been known about the details of the negotiation with a changing interest, sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes disappointed, when seeing that the final signature still not arriving. This Friday, Daniel Massias, manager of the Eroski franchise in Gibraltar, opted for the first of the sentiments: “It seems positive, but still without an agreement and no details of how it will work.” Other businessmen and political leaders, such as the mayor of La Línea de la Frontera, Juan Franco, have preferred to be cautious and not make assessments until they know more details.
Uceda is not surprised by this reception, especially when the 15,500 cross-border workers—according to estimates by the Government of Gibraltar—“continue to endure days of long and capricious queues at the border.” “People get nervous when they see the waits again. We are annoyed with that and with the current vacuum that is making some of the new hires shorter due to economic uncertainty,” denounces the association spokesperson. It is not an isolated fear, on the other hand, both the Government of Gibraltar and businessmen have warned on several occasions that, if the agreement does not occur, the negative impact on the economy of the region would be difficult to avoid.
Sammy Armstrong, director of the Savills real estate agency, breathed a sigh of relief this Friday, after “six very difficult months.” With a client base that is 90% English, Armstrong has been fully impacted by the limitations on entry to Spain that the English already suffer on the Rock border. “It has been horrible, to say that I cannot function like this because nothing is sold. The seller does not want to sell his house because if an agreement is going to be reached, he can sell it more expensive and the buyer thinks that he will not buy now in case there is no agreement," explains the manager, who says she feels relieved by the greater proximity of a possible final rubric.
“We call for, once and for all, a treaty to end what is a political agreement to give certainty to cross-border workers,” says Triano. Spokesman Uceda is clear that until that signature arrives, the constant and repeated political announcements that ensure that the final agreement will mean the creation of a common area of prosperity are only promises. “There is a lot of talk about shared prosperity, but the reality is that this does not resonate locally here. We have very worrying unemployment rates,” he says with skepticism.
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