Franco announces mass demo to border: ‘There is no Plan B’
By Maria Jesus Corrales
The Mayor of La Linea, Juan Franco, announced plans for a mass demonstration to demand an agreement that guarantees border fluidity and to press Spanish authorities for a contingency plan for the city in the event of ‘no deal’.
Speaking during a press conference where he was to update reporters on the Campo mayors' meeting with the Spanish Foreign Minister earlier this week, Mr Franco was visibly angry following chaotic scenes at the border on Friday.
Thousands of cross-border commuters faced delays after Spanish border officials ignored interim measures and began stamping the passports of Gibraltar residents as they crossed into Spain, prompting the Gibraltar Government to implement reciprocal measures for EU nationals coming into Gibraltar.
There was gridlock during the early-morning commuter rush-hour, though the situation returned to normal some hours later are urgent contact between authorities in Gibraltar and Spain.
Mr Franco said that even though Gibraltar immigration officers tightened controls for only about an hour, asking for and stamping passports when most cross-border workers carry only an ID card, it was like “a bomb going off in our hands”.
“This is a taste of what could happen,” he told reporters, adding any UK/EU treaty on Gibraltar’s post-Brexit relations with the EU must be beneficial for La Linea too.
“Today must serve as a point of inflexion and an opportunity to find solutions, because there is no Plan B.”
Mr Franco said he had already requested permission for a demonstration at 8pm on October 25, starting from the Plaza de Fariñas and going to the border, where a manifesto will be read out.
He called for labour representatives, civil society and business organisations, neighbourhood groups and sporting associations to back the march.
“We want a massive response,” he said.
“We are going to do everything in our gift to demonstrate unity, because our future is at stake.”
Mr Franco said it would be La Linea that carried the brunt of Brexit in the Campo, not the other municipalities.
“I’m fed up with this problem being diluted [by other Campo municipalities], because unfortunately, they force me to attend meetings with other Campo mayors with whom we have nothing in common.”
He singled out as an example Algeciras, where the Partido Popular mayor and senator, Jose Ignacio Landaluce, has repeatedly raised concerns about the impact of any treaty on the Port of Algeciras, Spain’s busiest port.
“It’s not on that different administrations of the same political leanings try to focus the Brexit problem on the problems of the Port of Algeciras,” he said.
“It doesn’t make sense at all.”
“La Linea’s situation is unique and does not exist anywhere else in Europe.”
“We have been wandering the desert for eight years.”
“The response has always been a quiet one, hopeful for an agreement that never arrives, an area of shared prosperity the shape of which no one has ever explained to me.”
Mr Franco said he feared an agreement would be reached “that creates more problems in La Linea than those we already have.”
Mr Franco called on Madrid to put in place a contingency plan in the event of a ‘no deal’ scenario, adding no one had ever explained to him what steps Spanish authorities would take.
“We’ve had 50 minutes of passport checks at the border and the impact has been structural, with people who have been unable to get to their places of work because of the queues,” he said.
“This requires careful thought by decisionmakers.”
“We are just a city council and we can’t do more than what we’re already doing.”
“Eight long years have passed since the Brexit referendum and there are competent bodies, like the state and the Junta de Andalucia, who must find solutions to the very serious problem that we face.”