Garcia tells UK MPs ‘status quo not an option’ after Brexit

The current status quo is “”not an option in the context of Gibraltar’s future relationship with the European Union, Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia told UK MPs this week.

Dr Garcia was speaking to a members of the all-party group on Gibraltar in the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon.

He said the choices on the table were a treaty outcome or a non-negotiated outcome, and made clear that both those routes “would require deep changes to the way in which Gibraltar interacted with the EU and with Spain”.

“Gibraltar will not be able to remain as it is at present, and change will come through one route or the other,” No.6 Convent Place said in a statement.
Dr Garcia reaffirmed that Gibraltar remained firmly committed to negotiating a treaty to govern its future relationship with the EU.

If this was not possible, he said contingency plans for a no deal scenario were designed to mitigate the impact within policy areas which the Government controlled.

Dr Garcia’s message echoed earlier statements by Chief Minister Fabian Picardo in the Gibraltar Parliament last week.

Mr Picardo said the Brexit “hammer will fall” at the border if negotiators failed to agree a treaty for Gibraltar’s post-Brexit relations with the EU.

The implication of ‘no deal’ is not that current arrangements will continue, but rather the full application of Schengen controls at the frontier with Spain, he said at the time, adding the treaty negotiation was never a choice between “magnificent options”.

Rather, “it is this manure show, or this manure show,” Mr Picardo said.

“Which would one do you prefer? Which is the safest, most beneficial of the manure shows?”

The Chief Minister stressed too that any treaty had to be weighed against the alternative of no deal, not the current situation in which Gibraltar found itself.

“What we see at the frontier today is not the alternative to a treaty,” the Chief Minister said.

“And we're not going to be always able to get into the European Union just showing our ID cards and our passports.”

“If we don't have a treaty, the hammer will fall. There will be the Schengen border code in full application.”

“That thing which the person we have called the rogue officer has once in a while done before being suspended for five months without pay would become the norm.”

The Deputy Chief Minister, who is the Minister responsible for relations with the Commonwealth, is also in London for a series of Commonwealth related meetings.

He discussed the contribution which small countries can make to the organisation with the Deputy Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Dr Arjoon Suddhoo, and outlined how Gibraltar had found and developed economic niche markets in the digital sphere.

Dr Garcia also took the opportunity to brief and exchange views with the representatives of a number of Commonwealth nations including Australia, New Zealand and Canada.