European ambassadors poised to ‘politically greenlight’ Gib treaty as EU-only agreement

The European Council’s Permanent Representatives Committee is expected on Wednesday to “politically greenlight” the UK/EU treaty on Gibraltar as an EU-only agreement, a key procedural step before the deal can be signed and provisionally implemented.

The committee, known as COREPER, brings together ambassadors from all EU member states and is expected to approve the ‘agreement in principle’ as a so-called ‘I item’, meaning it needs no further discussion.

The treaty had already been scrutinised in detail over many weeks by the Council’s Working Party on EU-UK relations before it was passed to COREPER.

As part of that process the working party - made up of diplomats and officials from the 27 member states, the European Commission and the Council secretariat - considered whether the deal should be handled as an EU-only agreement, as the Commission had recommended.

That would mean it would require ratification only in the European Parliament and not in the national parliaments of all member states, as would be the case with a mixed agreement.

Several member states requested an opinion from the Council Legal Service on that point and in Spain, the opposition Partido Popular insisted the deal should be voted on by the Spanish and other EU national parliaments.

But an EU official told the Chronicle that the Council working party had accepted the Commission’s EU-only recommendation and that COREPER will confirm this on Wednesday.

After Wednesday’s COREPER meeting, the file will then move to the Council for formal adoption, clearing the Commission to sign for provisional implementation even before the treaty has parliamentary ratification.

That process was due to be completed in time for April 10, the date that the EU’s new automated border control system, known as the Entry/Exit System, comes into full operation across the Schengen area after a year-long phased introduction.

The aim was to have the treaty in place, if only provisionally, to avoid disruption for the many thousands of people who cross the border daily in both directions.

But while the target date for the treaty to be signed will slip and likely be pushed back until the summer, the expectation is that interim measures will remain in place at the border allowing flexibility for Gibraltar residents and cross-border workers.

“Procedurally speaking, we should also wait for the Council to formally adopt a decision authorising the Commission to sign this agreement on behalf of the EU but, due to the urgency of the matter, COREPER is expected to politically greenlight the file before the formal adoption of the relevant decision by the Council, which will take place at a later stage,” the EU official told the Chronicle.

The official added that this will allow Spanish authorities to prepare “in an orderly fashion” for provisional implementation after the deal is signed, “and to ask for a temporary exemption from the EES for Gibraltar residents until the provisional application of the agreement”.

COREPER’s green light on Wednesday will be an important step but formal adoption by the Council is still some way off.

First, legal and linguistic revision of the texts must be completed and this is “a meticulous process” that takes time, the EU official said.

It has already led to at least one significant change in the treaty text, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo revealed in the Gibraltar Parliament earlier this week.

According to the Chief Minister, the Commission’s jurist linguists had required a change to a clause in which Spain was given the right to ask the EU to terminate the treaty on its request.

That clause “… caused angst in people [in Gibraltar] because people felt that Spain would therefore simply have the [termination] trigger in her hand,” Mr Picardo told Parliament.

“The legal conclusion of the Commission and the Council is that that cannot stand because of EU law and this being an EU-only agreement.”

“As it's an EU-only agreement, there cannot be the primacy that Spain was arguing for.”

The amended clause now requires the EU to take “the necessary steps in accordance with its internal procedures” should it receive a request from Spain to terminate the agreement.

“That means that qualified majority voting applies and that a qualified majority of the member states have to vote in favour of termination,” Mr Picardo said.

“So that trigger is no longer in Spain's hand and that is a welcome development [and] in keeping with the view we had taken as to how qualified majority voting would have to apply, whatever the clause said.”

The Commission and the UK will not be able to sign the treaty until the process of legal and linguistic revision is completed and the agreement is adopted formally by the Council.

Once signed, however, the treaty can be provisionally implemented even if the process of ratification in the UK and European parliaments has yet to commence.

UK Europe Minister Stephen Doughty said earlier this month that the parliamentary ratification process is expected to be completed in early 2027.