In Madrid, signs that Gibraltar and Spain are moving on from the past 

The last time I was in the Palacio de Viana was in 2015, when the Partido Popular was in office and Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo was Spain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.  

Mr Garcia Margallo, known for his hawkish stance on Gibraltar, was due to host a joint press conference with his then UK counterpart, Philip Hammond. 

I had travelled up to Madrid with GBC colleagues Christina Cortes and cameraman Alan Guerrero but the accreditation process had proved a nightmare, bounced from office to office to no avail.  

As the rest of the media pack trooped into the building shortly before the press conference was due to start, we were still being refused entry despite the best efforts of everyone from the late Julio Montesino, the then Campo representative for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, to the Campo press association and even the head of Spain’s national press federation. 

The decision to refuse access, we were told privately, came from up high. 

At the last moment, thanks also to pressure from Spanish media colleagues inside the building, we were finally allowed in. 

In the event, the impasse proved useful. Prior to getting the green light, the Foreign Office delegation had taken pity on our plight and had arranged for us to speak to Mr Hammond in the UK embassy after the event at the Palacio de Viana. 

In the end, we got an extra bite at the story. 

How different that experience was to covering Wednesday’s landmark visit by Chief Minister Fabian Picardo to the Palacio de Viana for a formal bilateral with Spain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albares. 

Spain has always struggled to acknowledge Gibraltar as a valid interlocutor in any discussion about the Rock, but that has changed. 

After years of complex negotiation since the 2016 Brexit referendum, Gibraltar, Spain, the UK and the European Commission have hammered out a deal that will recast the Rock’s relations with the Campo de Gibraltar, Spain and the wider EU beyond. 

The deal, of course, is not to everyone’s liking, and there will no doubt be challenges ahead as provisional implementation begins on July 15. 

Many practical and physical arrangements still need to be put in place and the parliamentary ratification processes in the UK and the EU have yet to be completed. 

There will be those in Gibraltar too who are inherently suspicious of efforts to normalise cross-border relations and of Spanish overtures to that end, perhaps understandably given our often-fractious recent history. 

There are also questions over whether any positive shift in Spain’s stance toward Gibraltar would survive a change of government after next year’s general election. 

The fact that this deal is between the UK and the EU “carries a suitable amount of weight and certainty behind it”, as UK Europe Minister Stephen Doughty said earlier this week. But for some, that may still not be enough. 

But doubts aside, the historic significance of this moment cannot be underplayed. 

All sides have repeatedly spoken of good faith in their approach to the negotiation, of wanting to seek stability and certainty for communities on either side of the border, of putting people above the discord of the past. 

The proof of that is evident on the ground with a fluid border despite the entry into operation of the EU’s new automated border control system, even before the agreement comes into provisional operation. 

Neither can we ignore that a ‘no deal’ outcome would have delivered a hard border that would likely have dealt a serious blow to Gibraltar’s economy. 

Last year, when the deal was announced, the four key negotiators were captured in a powerful image that neatly encapsulated the spirit of the negotiation. 

Standing in front of an EU flag, Mr Picardo and Mr Albares were photographed clasping hands with the then UK Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, and Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, who was recently granted a state honour by Spain for his role in that process. 

The image riled some in Spain, who were angered that Mr Picardo had been photographed alongside senior ministers, including their own foreign minister. 

They believed he should not have been there. 

But on Wednesday, as we waited inside the Palacio de Viana for the meeting to conclude, we stood in a courtyard outside the building’s press room, its walls adorned with images of different Spanish Foreign Ministers at landmark moments in the country’s recent history. 

There were several images of Mr Garcia Margallo and his predecessor, Alfonso Dastis, who was in post when the process toward this treaty was first set in motion. 

But the one that caught my eye was in the top right corner, a photograph of a Spanish Foreign Minister and three other men, one of them currently in the building, beaming large smiles and clasping hands after finally getting the deal over the line. 

Now, as Mr Picardo said yesterday, it’s about putting it all into practice and moving on from the past. 

At the Palacio de Viana on Wednesday, that process already seemed to be under way.