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Debbie Bartlett
Friday, 16 July 2021, 10:59
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The negotiations for a treaty on Gibraltar's future relationship with the EU will begin very soon, as the European Commission has indicated that it will put forward a mandate for them next week. It has taken the Commission much longer than expected to do this, as the Gibraltar and UK governments had originally hoped everything could have been finalised by the end of last month.
The first step in this process was what has become known as the 'New Year's Eve Agreement', which was completed in the early hours of 31 December last year, after months of hard negotiations between Gibraltar, Spain and the UK. The treaty will cover many different aspects, but the point of this agreement in principle which attracted the most attention was the proposal that Gibraltar should have a tailor-made Schengen-style agreement which would remove the existing land border and make the airport and port Schengen entry and exit points. This external Schengen border would under normal circumstances be controlled by Spain, but that was not acceptable to Gibraltar, so the suggested solution was for the EU's Frontex force to do so instead.
If this does come into effect, it will initially be for a period of four years and then reviewed. However, there is no guarantee that a treaty can be agreed, and the chief minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, has stressed on a number of occasions that he will not agree to anything that is not in Gibraltar's interests. Earlier this week he also warned about speculation and media posturing regarding the negotiations, saying that all that matters in the end is what is finally agreed.
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