The Gibraltar Question: A Spanish Blueprint

Last week, I was in Gibraltar. I was writing an article and wanted to find out what people on the streets thought of Brexit. I also joined a few Gibraltarian Facebook groups and internet forums on the topic. As usual, I saw there more active fringe political opinions than I heard in situ, but the message was essentially the same: "We voted 96% to remain, and now the EU is punching our face by giving Spain a veto on any special deal."

On the other side of the fence, some 7,000 Spanish workers cross the border every day to earn a living in a much wealthier town. They are also worried that, if no deal is reached, they won't be able to keep their jobs.

Meanwhile, as Diego Torres reports, politicians in Madrid are drafting up a negotiation blueprint to try to gain a foothold in The Rock and get closer to "planting the flag".

Gibraltar is a British territory in the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Its only land border is with Spain. It has around 30,000 people, most of them wealthy. Politically, Gibraltar is detached from the UK (as in, they have no MPs in Westminster). It has its own government and acts, in many ways, as a microstate. And, like many microstates, it resorts to low tax deals to attract investment.

Understanding the priorities of each of the sides is going to be important to understand not only the Brexit negotiations, but the future relations of two large European states such as Spain and the UK.

The Gibraltar issue is going to be a thorny one. Here, Diego Torres has done a good job (as usual). His article for Politico really brings up the three main Spanish interests on The Rock: Spanish workers' mobility, tax competition and territorial claim. It's a very good starting point to understand the basic motivations behind one of the sides of this fascinating triangle: co-dependent old enemies Spain and Britain, and Gibraltar, full of citizens that would prefer a status quo that has seen better days.