Spain’s top diplomat said on Friday, November 25, that Madrid and Brussels have approached the British government with a proposal for removing the border fence between Spain and Gibraltar
Jose Manuel Albares, Spain´s Foreign Minister, said in a statement that the proposed plan is intended to ease freedom of movement through the border.
‘The text presented to the United Kingdom is a comprehensive proposal that includes provisions on mobility with the aim of removing the border fence and guaranteeing freedom of movement.’
Such a move would make Spain, as representative of Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone, ‘responsible for controlling Gibraltar’s external borders’, it said.
The Schengen Area allows people to move freely across the internal borders of 26 member states, four of which are not part of the EU.
Madrid would monitor the border on behalf of the EU
Albares said the proposal would mean Madrid ‘taking on a monitoring and protection role on behalf of the EU with regards to the internal market with the removal of the customs border control’ between Spain and Gibraltar.
The deal would ‘guarantee the free movement of goods between the EU and Gibraltar’ while guaranteeing respect for fair competition, meaning businesses in the enclave would ‘compete under similar conditions to those of other EU operators, notably those in the surrounding area’.
Although Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain in 1713, Madrid has long wanted it back in a thorny dispute that has for decades involved pressure on the frontier.
There has been no response from London so far.
