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The online gambling hub of Gibraltar is approaching five years past Brexit without a full agreement that would allow a vital daily flow of workers across the border from Spain, leading many to wonder if the outcome will be no deal.
January 31, 2025 will mark the fifth anniversary of the UK’s exit from the European Union, without a breakthrough in negotiations between the UK, Spain and the European Union that would allow free-flowing access across the Gibraltar border for the 12,000-plus workers that commute each weekday.
The Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association trade group said its members have suggested a number of remedies to the government in case of the “challenging topic” of no deal.
Secretary general Nicholas Macias said he has no more insight than anyone into whether a deal will be reached.
But, he said “while a deal with a free-flowing frontier would likely alleviate some concerns around workforces on both sides of the border, I’m confident that this industry — given its long-standing resilience in Gibraltar — would adapt to a no-deal outcome, whatever that may entail”.
Individual members have suggested measures to government and have also taken steps to mitigate the impact of a potential deal, although Macias said he was not in a position to reveal details.
On October 24, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo updated parliament, saying any agreement would “involve practical compromises” and that “the only way this works is if no one loses and everyone wins”, according to the Gibraltar Chronicle.
Gibraltar will not concede “sovereignty, jurisdiction or control”, the Chief Minister told parliament.
But a deal probably will mean “practical compromises in matters relating to immigration and the free movement of goods”, he said.
“I haven't gone to Brussels to negotiate the surrender of the European Union to the people of Gibraltar,” Picardo said, according to the newspaper.
“I'm not going to come back with everything that we want signed up by the European Union, the United Kingdom and Spain.”
Picardo said treaty negotiations “cannot be a poker game”.
“There are four parties sitting around this negotiating table and the only way this works is if no one loses and everyone wins, but doesn't win anything of the things that any of the others would have considered to be historic fundamentals,” he said, according to the Chronicle.
“That's tough.”
There are no meetings scheduled, although there have been three since April, Picardo told parliament.
On October 11, Spanish border police began stamping Gibraltar and EU passports entering that country, and Gibraltar immediately reciprocated, a development that paralysed transit for that day.
But Picardo said his government believed that the episode was a one-off action by a Spanish police officer, rather than coming by order from Madrid.
That episode led to a demonstration by thousands of local residents in La Línea de la Concepción, the closest Spanish town to the Gibraltar border, with protestors demanding a border deal.
Several thousand La Linea residents cross the border every weekday for jobs.
Mayor Juan Franco had handed out pamphlets saying “we don’t want another 1969”, a reference to a border shutdown under the regime of Spanish dictator Franco, which pummelled the town’s economy.
The demonstrators shouted slogans like “La Línea matters, we are not invisible" and "united people will never be defeated".
Lack of an agreement on Gibraltar after Brexit "threatens the economic stability of thousands of families and businesses", the mayor said.
In June, Gibraltar’s Nigel Feetham, minister for justice, trade and industry, told a KPMG-sponsored gambling conference that Gibraltar should prepare for a collapse of negotiations, but that it would find a way to adjust to any outcome.
He said gambling represented 20 percent of its gross domestic product, and Gibraltar itself represents a fifth of the GDP of Campo de Gibraltar, the Spanish region surrounding the British Overseas Territory.
Separately, the Daily Telegraph reported that Gibraltar government was storing medicine in tunnels under the region’s famous Rock, in case negotiations collapse.
The government did not respond to a series of questions from Vixio GamblingCompliance in time for deadline.
