Spanish Gibraltar airport demand threatens free movement deal
A Spanish demand to co-manage Gibraltar’s airport threatens to scupper a free movement deal for the Rock as part of post-Brexit talks, The Telegraph understands.
After lengthy negotiations, Spain and Britain have agreed on a broad outline for an agreement that would create a common travel area by including the British territory within the Schengen borderless space, with joint security controls organised by Gibraltar police and the European Union’s Frontex border agency at Gibraltar’s airport and ports.
The 18th round of negotiations between EU and UK officials started last week in Brussels.
Negotiators are trying to finalise a deal by June, ahead of European elections that month and British elections later in the year, amid fears talks could founder long-term if that deadline is missed.
But Madrid’s insistence on having joint control of the airport, which is also home to an RAF base, has become a major roadblock due to the extra logistics and security implications, The Telegraph understands.
“What sense would it make for us to leave out such an advantageous element for the local population as the airport?” said Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, who broached the issue with his UK counterpart David Cameron at a Nato meeting last November.
‘Not legally British’
Spain claims the land where the airport is situated is not legally British territory. Gibraltar’s airport is situated on the isthmus connecting the Rock to mainland Spain, and was not included in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht in which Spain ceded the area.
Sir Bill Cash, the Conservative MP who chairs the European scrutiny committee, said concerns over sovereignty had been laid out to him in a letter from Gibraltar’s chief minister, Fabian Picardo.
The staunchly pro-Brexit MP said he was “disturbed” by possible concessions to Spain and the EU, including “joint UK-Spanish management of Gibraltar’s airport and, therefore, defence issues”.
In reply, David Rutley, the Foreign Office minister for the Americas, Caribbean and Overseas Territories, said: “We are prepared to explore practical and technical options to facilitate flights between Gibraltar and the EU.
“The UK will not agree to anything that compromises sovereignty,” he added.
The agreement is needed to prevent a hard post-Brexit border between Spain and Gibraltar, with Spanish authorities so far showing flexibility in allowing the flow of people into and out of the Rock, including around 15,000 Spain-based workers who are essential to the Gibraltarian economy.
