Else Beekman
On Tuesday, Europe’s last land border effectively stopped existing. The UK and the EU signed the Gibraltar Treaty in Brussels on Tuesday, and with that signature, La Verja, the fence that has separated Gibraltar from Spain for more than 300 years, starts coming down.
It took four years of talks to get here, five if you go back to Brexit itself. Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade commissioner, put pen to paper. He did so alongside UK Europe minister Stephen Doughty, with Spain’s foreign minister José Manuel Albares and Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Fabian Picardo standing by. The whole thing was over in a couple of minutes, but it closes one of the last open chapters of Brexit.
On paper, the treaty is enormous: 336 articles, and over a thousand pages once you add the annexes. The UK and European Parliaments still need to ratify it formally, something expected around December. However, the practical changes are starting straight away.
Tropical fish Strait Gibraltar: what’s changing?
The daily queue is gone
Anyone who’s commuted between La Línea and Gibraltar knows the drill: long lines, unpredictable waits, and things getting worse whenever Madrid and London weren’t getting along. That’s over now. Around 15,000 people cross into Gibraltar for work every day, roughly 10,000 of them Spanish. They will be able to walk or drive through without stopping.
The checks haven’t disappeared, they’ve just moved. Spanish police will now handle EU entry checks at Gibraltar’s airport and seaport, working alongside Gibraltar’s own border staff rather than replacing them. It’s a similar setup to how French police work inside London’s St Pancras station before Eurostar passengers ever board a train.
There’s also something in the treaty for people’s long-term security: pensions, healthcare and other benefits are meant to carry across the border. This means that someone who lives in Spain and works in Gibraltar (or vice versa) doesn’t lose out just because of where they happen to sleep at night.
Trade opens up as well
Goods get much the same treatment as people. Lorries and shipments used to face routine checks that slowed everything down and pushed up costs for businesses on both sides. With Gibraltar effectively folded into the EU single market, European goods can now reach the Rock with a lot less paperwork.
That comes with strings attached. Gibraltar now has to follow EU rules on product standards, food safety, health and phytosanitary checks, the environment and competition. For ordinary shoppers and retailers, it should mean an easier flow of everyday goods, from food to consumer electronics.
One exception: vehicles that Gibraltar imports, refurbishes and re-exports to countries outside the EU, largely through the port of Valencia, keep a simplified process of their own, since they were never really destined for the EU market in the first place.
VAT by another name
Tax turned out to be the hardest part of the whole negotiation. Gibraltar has never charged VAT. This kept prices lower there than across the border and left Spanish businesses complaining for years about unfair competition. The treaty addresses that with a new tax on sales, essentially VAT in all but name. The tax is starting at 15% and climbing to 17% after three years, still a touch below the EU standard.
To keep both sides honest, an independent panel of experts will monitor how prices move on either side of the border. The idea is that the new tax actually narrows the gap, rather than just looking like it does.
What doesn’t change
Sovereignty was never on the table, and it still isn’t. Both sides chose to leave that question untouched. Instead, they focus on the practical stuff: how people cross, how goods move, how tax gets collected. Picardo has called it a real turning point, coming after decades marked by closed borders, military stand-offs and, more recently, hours-long queues whenever tensions flared.
Gibraltar now follows Schengen’s border rules without formally joining the EU or Schengen itself. The bloc’s new biometric Entry/Exit System won’t apply at the land crossing with Spain. That last detail matters a lot for the daily commuters. They would otherwise be looking at fingerprint and facial scans every single morning just to get to work.
On the ground, Spanish workers have already begun tearing down sections of the old checkpoint. Once that’s finished, the crossing will look nothing like a border at all. It will be an open strip about 180 metres wide, marked out with different coloured tarmac to show where Gibraltar begins.
Gibraltar treaty text published as Spain border changes move closer