In Spanish Congress, Albares champions ‘historic’ treaty as Sumar says respect for Gibraltarians key to progress 

In addressing the Spanish Congress on Wednesday during a much-anticipated intervention on the UK/EU treaty for Gibraltar, Spain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albares, said the simplest way of explaining its content was to analyse what a ‘no deal’ scenario would have meant for Spain. 

It was the first time that a Spanish minister explained in explicit terms why failure to reach a deal would have been bad for Spain. 

No deal would have meant the frontier becoming “a rigid, hard border”, much the same as had happened in the past to the detriment of communities in the Campo de Gibraltar, Mr Albares told the Congress. 

“This would have created a complicated and uncertain situation for the movement of people and goods, causing huge congestion, especially during rush hours for cross-border workers entering Gibraltar,” he said. 

“It would have entrenched the separation of Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar in a way that harmed our interests and our citizens.” 

He said customs and tax cooperation “would have suffered”, and Gibraltar “could have reduced taxes on sensitive products”. 

Without a deal, cross-border workers would have been left to “potential restrictions”, their labour rights unrecognised. 

There would have been “complex decisions” on transport policy too, including “perpetuating” the current situation with the airport to the detriment of opportunity. 

The Campo’s economy “would have been seriously damaged” and “environmentally harmful practices such as land reclamation and waste dumping” could have increased. 

The treaty is between the UK and the EU, but Spain will be the bloc’s guarantor in areas such as immigration and customs, and Mr Albares, playing to a highly critical audience of opposition MPs, made that message clear. 

Without a treaty, “Spain would have seen its capacity for influence and control reduced,” Mr Albares said. 

“Instead, and for the first time in 312 years, Spain is taking a leading role in all these matters.” 

“Spain is taking the initiative with a clear plan for the future of the Campo de Gibraltar and the Strait area, a plan for coexistence and progress.” 

“It is an agreement with a long-term vision and ambitious goals in the short, medium, and long term, responding to the legitimate demands of the Campo de Gibraltar and achieving, for the first time, practical progress.” 

RESPECTING ‘WISHES’ 

The session in the Congress included interventions from Spain’s different political parties, with the opposition Partido Popular and Vox adopting unsurprising positions on the treaty that quickly drifted into full-fledged attacks on domestic controversies facing the Sanchez coalition. 

The negotiation was “a missed opportunity” to push Spain’s sovereignty aspirations after Brexit, they argued, complaining too about a lack of detailed information. 

The PP’s Carlos Floriano was critical of Mr Albares’ “grandiose” words, which he said concealed an opaque approach to the negotiation and the detail of its content. 

“You have a political agreement, nothing else,” he said. 

But there were opposing views too, most notably from an MP for Sumar, a coalition partner in the PSOE-led government. 

Agustin Santos Maraver [pictured above] is no ordinary MP when it comes to debating issues relating to Gibraltar. Up until July 2023, he was Spain’s ambassador to the United Nations, the man tasked twice-yearly with delivering Spain’s position on Gibraltar before the UN’s two decolonisation committees. 

He welcomed the agreement, while putting onus on the need to ensure shared prosperity worked for communities on both sides of the border. 

But it was on the issue of sovereignty where, after a short history lesson on the Treaty of Utrecht, Mr Santos delivered a new and surprising message. 

He bemoaned the Spanish right’s “absolutist vision” of sovereignty that translated into “sieges and harassment...all at the expense of communities in the area.” 

“What is being presented today is simply a completely different logic,” Mr Santos said. 

“It's a logic that says that populations, in accordance with the UN charter, have rights.” 

“The aim is to defend the interests and wishes of peoples, and as such it's a very distinct logic.” 

“Because we have to win the hearts of the Gibraltarians if we hope to recover a territory that was lost in a domestic war in 1713.” 

Mr Santos noted that in 2002, Gibraltarians had voted to remain British when faced with the threat of joint sovereignty, and again to maintain close links to the EU by supporting Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum. 

“And it is necessary to understand that the UK Parliament has made clear it will take no decision against the wishes of the people of Gibraltar,” he added. 

The treaty, he said, was “the shortest route” to “unite the interests” of the people of Gibraltar with those of the Campo de Gibraltar and Spain. 

The intervention was significant because Spain’s traditional stance before the UN, which Mr Santos himself had delivered on multiple occasions in New York, is that sovereignty is a bilateral matter for the UK and Spain, and that Gibraltarians have no right to self-determination under the UN charter. 

While Spain says any change in sovereignty must protect the interests of the Gibraltarians, it has studiously avoided the word “wishes” in its UN interventions. 

Chief Minister Fabian Picardo, who has met Mr Santos multiple times during UN sessions and was just this week addressing the Fourth Committee, said he was “pleased” to hear the PP and Vox lament the lack of any progress on sovereignty matters in the UK/EU treaty agreement, and Mr Albares confirm there was no change in Spain’s position, “but no gains at all”. 

“It was particularly gratifying to hear the words of the former Spanish Ambassador to the United Nations, Snr Agustin Santos Maraver, in an address to the Spanish Parliament for Sumar, one of the parties that makes up the Spanish Government, that our interests and wishes must be respected, and therefore the only way to recover the sovereignty of Gibraltar is to win the hearts of the Gibraltarians,” Mr Picardo said. 

“That is to say, persuading us to exercise our right to self-determination in favour of changing our sovereignty from the UK to Spain.”    

“It is never going to happen, but he is right about the process, however wrong he may be about the likely outcome.” 

'HISTORIC’ 

During his intervention, Mr Albares provided details on the content of the treaty, although there was little that had not been set out previously in Gibraltar by the Chief Minister, in ministerial statements in the UK Parliament, and in Brussels by the European Commission. 

Mr Albares had asked to address the Congress immediately after the June 11 agreement, but Wednesday was the first opportunity available in the parliamentary calendar. 

He described the agreement as “historic”, saying it marked the first time in more than three centuries that a model of coexistence, cooperation and proximity had been formally established. 

Mr Albares said all of Spain’s democratic governments had previously attempted to reach such an agreement with the UK, but none had succeeded until now. 

“This Government has, and ladies and gentlemen, I choose my words carefully, we are witnessing a truly historic moment, because this agreement will mean the fall of the fence, the last wall in continental Europe,” he said. 

“It will also mark a before and after in terms of stability, prosperity, and wellbeing in the lives of the 300,000 Andalusians in the Campo de Gibraltar, a new stage in the relationship between Spain and the United Kingdom.” 

Mr Albares said the agreement had at its core the wellbeing of citizens on both sides of the border, without compromising Spain’s long-standing position on Gibraltar. 

“The agreement explicitly states that we do not renounce our position, and that nothing in the text or its implementation may be used to support opposing claims in international courts,” he said. 

“Therefore, we have not, and will never, renounce the claims, which remain fully safeguarded.” 

The agreement builds on arrangements reached in 2020 between the EU and the UK and aims to ensure better integration between Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar, he said. 

“This is also the final pending element in the new relationship between the EU and the United Kingdom after Brexit,” he told the Congress. 

“It not only creates a situation of free movement between the Campo de Gibraltar and Gibraltar but also offers a new outlook for the development of the region as a whole.” 

The agreement includes removing the physical border fence, which Mr Albares said was “a necessary condition” for the full implementation of the treaty’s provisions. 

“This milestone is important for its symbolic value, but even more so because it achieves one of the agreement’s main goals, the free movement of people and goods,” he said. 

DETAILS 

Mr Albares outlined many of the treaty’s key provisions, all of which were already known but which were set out for a Spanish audience. 

He said, for example, that Spanish police will carry out Schengen controls at Gibraltar’s airport and port, and all physical checks at the border will be removed.  

He did not explain, however, that those will be dual immigration controls conducted from a new shared facility spanning the border and manned jointly with Gibraltarian immigration officials, or that there will be no need for controls at the port because the ferry service will end and cruise passengers are pre-cleared. 

Mr Albares said goods will move under strict customs clearance procedures and shipments destined for Gibraltar will first have passed through Spanish customs. 

He noted too the introduction of a transaction tax in Gibraltar that will be “never lower than the minimum established in the European Union”.  

Another “historic aspect” of the agreement is the use of Gibraltar’s airport, which will be linked to other Spanish and EU airports.  

To facilitate that, a “joint management system will be established through a mixed company owned 50% by Spain”. 

He did not add further detail on this point, though the Gibraltar Government has previously said a 50/50 joint venture between Gibraltar and Spain will be created with the sole purpose of awarding a tender to an operating company that will run the air terminal. 

The joint venture will not own any assets – the terminal is owned by the Gibraltar Government and that will continue to be the case – and will be set up in Ireland, one of only three common-law jurisdictions in the EU, the others being Malta and Cyprus. 

In his intervention, Mr Albares said the treaty will also include a “level playing field” chapter, with rules on state aid, the environment, labour rights, anti–money laundering and sustainable development, he said. These provisions will include a dispute resolution mechanism. 

The agreement will also establish a range of rights for cross-border workers, including provisions on social security, unemployment benefits and pensions, he told the Congress. 

It also includes a financial mechanism to support cohesion between Gibraltar and the Campo, including a social fund and support for daily commuting by the region’s 15,000 cross-border workers. 

Mr Albares also noted provisions relating to the UK’s military base in Gibraltar.  

“For the first time, Spain will have full access to information about people and goods arriving there, ensuring that the Schengen acquis and the Customs Union rules also apply to the base,” he said. 

The UK has repeatedly stated that the treaty delivers the “military autonomy” vital to its operation.