As 2023 draws to a close, another dose of Brexit déjà vu

As the year draws to a close, I can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

Here we are again, just a couple of days from New Year’s Eve, and a cloud of post-Brexit uncertainty still lingers over the Rock. Alongside it, the promise that negotiators trying to hammer out a deal for our future are ‘almost there’.

I feel like I’ve written variations of this story on more occasions than I care to recall. It’s easy to lose heart.

And yet, for all the uneasy anticipation generated by this elusive deal, we cannot ignore a fundamental reality that offers reason to remain sanguine.

All sides remain at the negotiating table and all have publicly and repeatedly expressed commitment to a shared goal, the creation of a so-called ‘arc of shared prosperity’.

Why build up expectation like this if you didn’t think you could get there?

But finding a way for two distinct legal systems to dovetail seamlessly is no easy task, more so given deep-rooted sovereignty trip lines that undoubtedly are treacherous to navigate.

If we’re frustrated, imagine what it must be like for those sitting at the table. Patience is the least we can give them, not that we have much choice in any event.

We do need a decision at some point though, and crunch time is looming. Elections in the EU in June and perhaps earlier in the UK point to a narrowing window within which to seal a deal.

The mood music after the last round of formal and technical meetings earlier this month was cautiously upbeat, and the discussions continue.

I suppose, given the twists and turns since the Brexit referendum in 2016, that we can’t yet rule out an announcement before the year is out.

Everything is possible. Remember 2020 and the New Year’s Eve framework agreement, hammered out in the early hours of December 31st just hours before the year was through and the Brexit transition period expired.

But it seems unlikely. The optimism expressed by Gibraltar and Spain just before Christmas was tempered. There was clearly still some work to do.

And the closer they get, the harder it gets. One side hesitates or ups the ante and it’s back to the drawing board again. And when that setback is resolved, someone else hesitates or raises the stakes, and the cycle commences again.

Earlier this month, European Commission executive vice president Maros Sefcovic, who is leading the negotiation for the EU, expressed confidence but with a caveat.

“Being in many negotiations of these kinds, the last mile is always the most difficult one,” he said. “So, I would not predict the final outcome.”

And in January this year, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo described progress in the negotiation as going through one door only to find “a room that has 1000 other doors”.

Yet there still appears to be a collective willingness to navigate the complexities of compromise. Each time, or so we’re told, negotiators are edging closer to the finish line.

If and when they do come back with a breakthrough, be it an announcement ‘in principle’ or the text of a deal, the onus will be on us to evaluate it with minds and not hearts.

Because no matter how good any agreement is, there will undoubtedly be elements of it that some of us won’t like. The same will probably be true on the Spanish and UK sides.

If nothing else we can expect a lot of noise, underscoring the need for calm analysis, not emotion.

Writing that last line, I’m reminded of the words of the then Spanish state secretary for European affairs, Juan Gonzalez-Barba, back in July 2021 during a briefing in Algeciras with reporters from Spain and Gibraltar.

“Ultimately,” he said, “everyone has to win, that’s the important thing, and everyone has to cede something.”

Former Chief Minister Sir Peter Caruana said pretty much the same a few months later.

While reserving judgement until he sees the fine print of any agreement, he said it was about evaluating “price against prize”.

“We all know what the risks are of there being no agreement,” he said.

“The prize is to avoid that.”

“[But] nothing in life is free. There is a price to everything. A negotiation is about give and take.”

On all sides, sealing this deal will require the political courage to embrace an agreement that will represent a seismic shift in Gibraltar’s relations with Spain and the European Union.

It must be an agreement that does not overstep long-established red lines, and negotiators must remember too that their work will not be done once consensus is reached.

The practical implementation of any deal may prove as tricky as negotiating it in the first place.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking but for all the doubts and doomsaying, my sense, based on years covering the Brexit fallout in the closest detail, is that they’ll get there.

It’s not just the huge resources in manpower and time that Gibraltar, the UK, Spain and the European Commission have devoted to this negotiation for over two years, and to the earlier agreements that paved the way.

Neither is it just the shared desire to protect the interests of communities on either side of the border from a decision that few people here wanted, the human factor that negotiators insist has been at the forefront of their deliberations from the outset.

It’s also that the negotiators won’t want to go into the history books as the ones who almost secured a landmark treaty but failed at the last hurdle.

They will zealously protect their respective corners, of course. That much is to be expected.

But they won’t want to be remembered as the negotiators who couldn’t agree on everything, and therefore agreed on nothing.