Treaty to be signed Tuesday in Brussels, with border immigration controls lifted at midnight that night 

The UK/EU treaty on Gibraltar will be signed in Brussels on Tuesday, ahead of the lifting of immigration controls at the land border at midnight that night. 

The agreement will be signed by the UK’s Minister for Europe, North America and the Overseas Territories, Stephen Doughty, and the EU’s Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, Maros Sefcovic, both of whom have played key roles in the negotiation. 

Also present at the signing will be Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and the Gibraltar negotiating team, alongside Spain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albares, and his team. 

The immigration controls at the border are expected to be lifted at midnight on Tuesday and Mr Picardo will host a reception at the airport ahead of that, at which La Linea mayor Juan Franco is expected to be present. 

The event, due to start at 10.30pm, coincides with the World Cup semi-final between Spain and France, which starts at 9pm.  

On Wednesday, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is expected to attend an event at the border together with Mr Albares, to which Campo mayor and public figures have also been invited. 

The event, which was initially scheduled for Monday but was postponed due to the deadly Almeria wildfire, was described in invitations as “the demolition of the fence”, even though most of the immigration infrastructure has already been removed. 

Details of Wednesday’s event have yet to be formally confirmed. 

On Monday Mr Picardo was engaged in back-to-back interviews with international media interested in the Gibraltar story, starting just before 8am with BBC Radio 4’s flagship morning current affairs programme, Today. 

Mr Picardo described the treaty as “a gamechanger” that he hoped would put not just Brexit “behind us”, but also “the issues that we had even before Brexit”.  

He recalled that almost a decade ago on Today, he had spoken of the need for an agreement that created “a rainbow of opportunities that touched every one of the shores” of the Bay of Gibraltar, adding he believed the treaty achieved that. 

Mr Picardo also pointed to an article in Monday’s Times newspaper that warned people could potentially lose their lives in 12-hour queues going into Europe from the UK because of the new EES automated border control system, adding “we avoid all of that”. 

Mr Picardo was asked whether the treaty was in line with his previously expressed view of Brexit as a disaster. 

Brexit, the Chief Minister replied, was “an absolute disaster”. 

“I've made no bones of the fact that I've been saying since before the referendum and after the referendum that Brexit will be an act of self-harm,” he said.  

“I'm not saying that we mustn’t respect the will of the British people. We voted with the British people. The decision was to leave the European Union.” 

“This is how we avoid the worst consequences of that for Gibraltar.” 

In Brussels, Spain’s Mr Albares echoed that sentiment in comments to reporters as he arrived for a meeting of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council. 

He pointed to the treaty’s wider significance within UK/EU relations after Brexit, and to bilateral relations generally between the UK and Spain. 

 “Tomorrow marks the beginning of a historic period for Spain, for Andalusia and for the Campo de Gibraltar, a new stage, a new era in relations between the Campo de Gibraltar and Gibraltar, a new era of opportunities,” he said. 

“Tomorrow also finally brings Brexit to a close.”  

“The last piece that was missing was that agreement in relation to Gibraltar, which also opens up new possibilities for bilateral relations between the United Kingdom and Spain, and between the United Kingdom and the European Union.” 

In recent days, both the EU and Spain have published in their respective official gazettes formal recognition of Gibraltar ID and civil registration cards – red, blue, magenta and green – as residence permits valid for travel in the Schengen area in accordance with the treaty. 

Ahead of the signing too, there will also be attention in Gibraltar on the concordat between the UK and Gibraltar governments, which has not yet been published. 

The concordat is expected to guarantee the Gibraltar Government’s ability to exit the UK/EU treaty should it wish to or stop a future UK government from doing so against Gibraltar’s wishes. 

In Parliament earlier this month, Mr Picardo said the Deputy Chief Minister, the Attorney General and he were satisfied the concordat would protect Gibraltar’s position once the treaty came into effect.  

“There would be no circumstances in respect of which anything would be done under the terms of the agreement by the United Kingdom which would be contrary to the position of the people of Gibraltar,” Mr Picardo said at the time. 

Opposition leader Keith Azopardi said there were still “live points in respect of the detail of the concordat” and stressed the importance of ensuring that decisions taken by bodies created under the treaty “carry the consent of the Government of Gibraltar”.  

Mr Azopardi said the Opposition had commented on an earlier draft of the concordat in March and had since submitted further observations on an updated version.   

He said both sides wanted to ensure that decisions taken by “relevant entities, parties and committees under the treaty” reflected Gibraltar’s consent.