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According to EU negotiation guidelines issued in April last year, Gibraltar will find itself outside any future trade deal with the UK unless an agreement is reached in advance with Spain over its status, effectively giving Madrid a veto.
Gibraltar’s deputy chief minister, Dr Joseph Garcia, described the veto clause as illegal and said its use would be challenged in court.
He said that its invocation could prompt his government to review the status of EU nationals and also to revisit an agreement guaranteeing the payment of pensions to Spaniards who worked in Gibraltar before Franco closed the border in 1969.
“We’ve taken advice from the most senior UK lawyers and our advice is that the clause is illegal and our position is that if Spain exercises a veto under that clause, we will challenge it in court – whatever that may do to the whole of Brexit,” he said.
Garcia said that Spain was trying to draw a distinction between withdrawal and transition, even though Gibraltar insists transition is part of withdrawal.
Were Gibraltar to find itself excluded from the transition and withdrawal, he added, the government might, reluctantly, be forced to reconsider the rights of both EU nationals who live and work in the territory and the 13,000 workers who cross the border from Spain every day.
“Our view is that we are then no longer obliged to allow or provide the citizens’ rights that are provided in withdrawal or in transition, because it doesn’t apply to us,” Garcia said.
“In terms of workers, it isn’t something we want to do – let me stress that. But it’s something that is an option.
“There are 2,000 EU nationals who live in Gibraltar, quite apart from the workers. Some of them obviously work here as well. Eight hundred of those are Spanish and they’ve chosen to make Gibraltar their home. [...]