Agreement turns Brexit from ‘potential absolute chaos’ to Gib’s ‘greatest opportunity’, CM says

The political agreement reached on Gibraltar’s post-Brexit future has turned “potential absolute chaos” into the Rock’s “greatest opportunity”, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said at the KPMG Gibraltar eSummit on Thursday afternoon.

Mr Picardo had landed in Gibraltar from Brussels just hours prior to delivering an address to sector representatives from the gaming sector.

After nearly four years of negotiations, negotiators secured a deal that seeks to ensure fluidity across the border for both people and goods and, on Thursday, he updated the gambling sector on what this means for Gibraltar.

The Sunborn ballroom was packed for Mr Picardo’s seven-minute speech, with not a seat to spare and an influx of attendees shuffling into the room and standing by to watch.

“The Chinese curse says that you have to turn every moment of crisis into opportunity. Brexit wasn't a moment of crisis for Gibraltar,” Mr Picardo said.

“It was a moment of potential absolute chaos.”

Mr Picardo told gambling operators that this agreement means their employees can live in and around Gibraltar and that Brexit will no longer be a problem.

“That they can come in and out of Gibraltar without so much as having to flash any document, neither an identity card nor a passport as they enter and leave the territory of Gibraltar,” he said.

“We have, in effect, agreed to become an associate immigration area to Schengen.”

“When you are in the Schengen area, which includes some states which are not in the EU and doesn't include some states which are in the EU, you will also be cleared to be in Gibraltar.”

He stressed that what has been agreed is fluid movement and not the principle of free movement.

Free movement, he explained, means the right of establishment in a place.

“We have not negotiated and we did not want to negotiate the right of establishment,” he said.

“No person in the 480 million people who live in the European Union will be able to come to Gibraltar to establish themselves.”

“Neither will somebody in Gibraltar be able to go to Spain to establish themselves.”

“What we have negotiated is fluidity of people, and that's what we set out to negotiate.”

He told the conference that the agreement means operators can recruit and retain staff.

In turn, he said, this will mean businesses can grow in Gibraltar.

“We have done that… without compromising one grain of our land, one breath of our air and one drop of our water, which was the foundational principle behind everything that we have negotiated and everything that we do,” he said.

“I hope that when you see the detail of the text, you will agree that it is a hugely positive agreement for Gibraltar, that it is a hugely positive agreement for the region and in particular that it is a hugely positive agreement for your industry.”

Mr Picardo added that he will reiterate this to the United Nations Committee of 24 in New York next week.

“Nothing agreed in Brussels has compromised the principle that Gibraltar is entirely British from its most northern point on the isthmus to its most southern point where our waters meet the Strait.”