Draft UK-EU Agreement on Gibraltar

Edward Morello Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) on securing this important debate. Before I begin, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It was my privilege to represent the Liberal Democrats at the Gibraltar national day celebrations last year as a guest of His Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar. That visit, and my work on the Foreign Affairs Committee, gave me the opportunity to question Ministers, the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, opposition politicians and business leaders about the treaty. Those discussions made it clear that the agreement has been shaped by the priorities of Gibraltar itself.

The Brexit deal left Gibraltar in a state of limbo for years. The treaty finally resolves one of the last outstanding Brexit issues and provides Gibraltar with the certainty it has been seeking ever since the United Kingdom left the European Union. In 2016, 96% of Gibraltarians voted to remain in the European Union; they have had to live with the consequences of a Brexit that they did not vote for. This agreement is about undoing some of the damage caused by a Brexit deal that Boris Johnson called “oven-ready” but in reality was always destined for the bin.

The Chief Minister made it clear to the Foreign Affairs Committee that the single most important priority was ensuring that people who live in Spain but work in Gibraltar, particularly in the financial services and gaming sectors, could continue to cross the frontier every day without excessive delays. Without an agreement, Gibraltar would have been required to implement the full Schengen border code, and travellers would have faced European entry and exit systems and, in the future, the ETIAS—European travel information and authorisation system—digital travel authority. Those additional checks would have created significant delays, threatening Gibraltar’s competitiveness and potentially encouraging businesses to relocate. Instead, eligible travellers will enjoy fluid movement comparable with travelling between Schengen countries. Their ability to continue doing so quickly and efficiently underpins Gibraltar’s economy and the public services that Gibraltarians rely on.

But this deal is about more than economics. The Chief Minister reminded the Foreign Affairs Committee that Gibraltar and the surrounding Campo de Gibraltar are communities bound together by families, friendship and shared history. During the closure of the frontier between 1969 and 1982, families were physically separated, forced to wave to one another across a closed border. Nobody wants a future resembling that painful past.

This agreement protects the everyday relationships that exist across the frontier for work, family, education and leisure, and allows those connections to continue. Approximately 96% of Gibraltarian goods arrive through the land frontier with Spain. After Brexit, sanitary and phytosanitary barriers made importing fresh British food significantly more difficult, with products even requiring air freighting during the Christmas period. This treaty offers businesses the certainty they need. Essential food products will be zero-rated under a new transactions tax, and there will be reduced rates on other essential goods.

The Chief Minister also made it clear that Gibraltar rejected any “freedom of establishment” in the treaty. Gibraltar is home to about 38,000 people living within approximately 2.5 square miles; it was never the intention to create unrestricted rights of establishment across a bloc of approximately 480 million people. Instead, the agreement focuses on facilitating movement across the frontier while preserving Gibraltar’s own immigration rules.

Perhaps the greatest misconception about the treaty concerns sovereignty. The Government of Gibraltar state that there are no sovereignty concessions. The British Government state that sovereignty was never on the negotiating table. Article 2 explicitly preserves the position of both the UK and Spain on sovereignty and jurisdiction. Three independent legal opinions commissioned by the Government of Gibraltar conclude unequivocally that the treaty makes no concessions whatsoever to Spain or the European Union.

The agreement also protects Britain’s strategic interests. The operational autonomy of the military base remains entirely unaffected. Protecting unrestricted military access was a red line throughout negotiations, supported fully by the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Secretary. In the highly unlikely event that Spain should ever seek to terminate the agreement, it cannot do so unilaterally. Under article 66, termination would require a qualified majority among European Union member states followed by action by the European Commission. That provides important legal certainty for Gibraltar’s future.

I want to say something briefly about the wider UK-EU relationship. Gibraltar demonstrates something important: where the UK and the EU work together pragmatically, solutions can be found that benefit everyone. It shows that close co-operation with our European neighbours delivers tangible benefits. Britain’s long-term future should lie at the heart of Europe, because our economy, our security and our young people’s opportunities are stronger when we work alongside our closest neighbour and ally.

I praise those who made this agreement possible. Officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Ministers, the Governor’s Office, His Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar, the European Commission and Spain have spent many years negotiating what the Minister has rightly described as a practical and lasting solution. This treaty will protect Gibraltar’s economy, safeguard British sovereignty, preserve military interests, strengthen regional stability and, above all, respect the democratic wishes of the Gibraltarian people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

I will come back to the timeline in due course. It is quite right that throughout the process Parliament has provided scrutiny, as it has been doing in this debate, which is very welcome.

[Edward Morello]

Perhaps it is useful to point out that the Foreign Affairs Committee does not, as standard, hold evidence sessions on every treaty that is laid before Parliament under the CRaG process. The Minister and the Chief Minister very kindly appeared before us to give evidence, and frankly a lot of the questions that the shadow Minister asked were probably answered in that evidence session.

[Stephen Doughty]

Indeed; that is a fair point, and I appreciate the hon. Gentleman making it. We did appear before the Foreign Affairs Committee, and we have endured scrutiny in the media and from businesses and others—and quite rightly so. On my visit to Gibraltar, I met with the leader of the opposition, businesses and others, who had legitimate and reasonable questions to ask. We have done our best to answer those transparently and in good faith.

What matters most at this point is providing clarity and certainty for the people and businesses of Gibraltar, which is why I am pleased to say that the UK and EU will provisionally apply the agreement from 15 July—next week. This is an important milestone for Gibraltar. The UK and the EU, along with Gibraltar and Spain, are committed to fully ratifying the treaty as soon as possible, and we are all working at pace to achieve that.

My understanding is that the process in the European Parliament will take place this autumn, up to December. We will be operating under a similar timeline, in accordance with the discussions we are having with the relevant Committees and others regarding the CRaG process. Once signed, the treaty will be provided immediately to the UK Parliament, and I will make the appropriate statements to signify that moment. We will then have the CRaG process and ratification. I hope that satisfies Members who asked about the timeline, but I will go into a little more detail later.

Much of the legislative and operational work to bring the agreement into force is being led by His Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar, and they have made very strong progress in a short space of time. They have already put in place their main primary legislation and are working tirelessly on the many practical steps needed to apply the agreement. I am pleased to say that there is very strong co-operation between the Spanish and Gibraltarian authorities across areas of shared implementation, including the physical infrastructure works required at Gibraltar’s airport. We stand ready to assist in whatever way we can, and have done so throughout the process.

It is important to emphasise, as many Members have, that negotiations on sovereignty were never on the table during the treaty negotiations, and that was not in doubt. The agreement is about technical arrangements that govern Gibraltar’s relationship with the EU. I appreciate the compliments paid by the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton), and others about article 2 of the treaty, which makes it clear that the agreement in no way affects our sovereignty position on Gibraltar and cannot be used to challenge it.

As I set out both in opposition and now in government, we remain committed to the Gibraltar double lock, which means we would never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes, and we would never enter into a process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar was not content. The sovereignty of Gibraltar is protected in the treaty for the long term. If it had not been, we would not have agreed it.

Many Members raised important points about the military base. Safeguarding the operational autonomy of the UK’s military facilities has been a red line for the UK Government throughout our discussions. The agreement protects that autonomy and allows our facilities to continue their vital contribution to regional security and prosperity. The Ministry of Defence has been closely involved in the negotiations at every stage. We have the full backing of the Defence Secretary and defence teams on this agreement. I am glad that that was confirmed by colleagues’ experiences of engaging with the Commander British Forces in Gibraltar.

The agreement also removes immigration checks at Gibraltar’s land border with Spain. That is crucial for the nearly 15,000 people who cross the border every day for work, and for protecting Gibraltar’s economy. To unlock the benefits of a fluid border, travellers arriving at the airport will undergo dual immigration controls. Under this system, visitors have the benefit of crossing freely into Spain without checks. Time spent in Gibraltar will therefore count towards the EU’s 90/180 days requirement. The Government of Gibraltar have assessed that the significant impact of an open border outweighs any challenges that might result from it. Because Gibraltar automatically already applies a period for UK residents coming into Gibraltar, it has been pointed out that, practically, this means very little. It does not, of course, affect the residents of Gibraltar itself. The agreement delivers a solution that the Government of Gibraltar want, and the Chief Minister has been very clear on that.

The treaty has a series of benefits for wider relationships. The shadow Minister rightly pointed out the welcome announcement regarding non-co-operative jurisdictions from our friends in Spain. That is important to Gibraltar and is a testament to how things have moved forward. We have seen tangible and positive developments in our relationship with our friends in Spain across a whole series of issues that matter to people here in the UK, including our co-operation in business, security and trade. That is welcome. The treaty is, of course, one of the crucial aspects of the reset in our relationship with the European Union. This agreement is good for Gibraltar and for the United Kingdom, and it is good for all the people, including our people. Right hon. and hon. Members have accurately reflected the work and statecraft that has gone into it and the practical benefits it will deliver. This marks a turning point.

Before I conclude, let me respond to some of the specific points that have been made. I have answered the questions about the timing of the CRaG process, but Members will appreciate that bringing a treaty of this complexity into effect has required a set of interlocking processes. We are not the sole guardians of the process; there are processes in Gibraltar, Spain and the European Union, and the treaty can be signed only once those processes—including the EU’s translation of the text into 23 other official languages—have concluded and been aligned. Rather than delaying the publication until that point, we chose to bring forward the draft treaty so that Members could scrutinise it and see the detail.

I assure Members that the text published in February remains substantively unchanged. The intervening period has been used for legal verification, technical checks and the preparation of authentic language versions. That is one of the reasons why the final treaty will be published and signed imminently. The provisional application will take place from 15 July, and we will then make the appropriate statements in this House and start the CRaG process, in line with discussions with the secretariat of the European Affairs Committee regarding the practical arrangements.