The historic Fence that divides Gibraltar from Spain has been for more than a hundred years the physical emblem of the separation between the British colony and the Campo de Gibraltar. It even functioned as an absolute closure during Francoism. Now, starting July 15, it will become part of the past thanks to the agreement reached between the United Kingdom and the European Union to articulate the Rock's new relationship with the community bloc after 'Brexit'.
To symbolize this turning point, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will go to La Línea this Monday accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares. An "demolition act" of the Fence is planned there, as Moncloa has announced, which has not wanted to offer more details or clarify whether British or Gibraltarian representatives will attend.
The ceremony will be held on the eve of the signing in Brussels of the agreement sealed last December, which will allow its provisional application from midnight on July 15. The document will be signed by Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, who has led the negotiation on behalf of the EU, and by the Secretary of State for Europe of the United Kingdom, Stephen Doughty, with the presence of Albares and the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo.
The Fence was erected in 1909 by decision of the British Government on the isthmus connecting the Rock to the rest of the peninsula, a territory that since the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, by which Spain ceded Gibraltar to the United Kingdom, had been considered a neutral zone. Its moment of greatest notoriety came in 1969.
On June 8 of that year, Franco ordered the closure of the crossing, through which Spaniards working in Gibraltar and Gibraltarians who went to Spain to shop or visit their families traveled daily in both directions, also suspending telephone and maritime communications.
Although the dictator died in November 1975, the measure did not begin to be reversed until Felipe González came to La Moncloa in 1982. In his first Council of Ministers, on December 15 of that year, pedestrian passage was allowed again, while the reopening to road traffic did not occur until February 1985.
That long closure remains very present both among Gibraltarians and among the residents of La Línea. Many families were separated for years and, in order to reunite, they were forced to take a ferry to Tangier, in Morocco, and another afterwards to Algeciras, repeating the journey in the opposite direction to cross the few meters that separate the Rock from La Línea.
Loren Periáñez, president of the Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises of La Línea and spokesperson for the Cross-Border Group that brings together businessmen and unions from both sides, recalls how he used to accompany his mother to the Border Gate to see his aunt and cousins, who had remained on the Gibraltarian side. "As if it were the Berlin Wall," he explained at a recent meeting with journalists.
In the case of Alfred Bassadone, a member of the Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce and also a member of the Cross-Border Group, one of his relatives "jumped into the water and swam to Spain to see his father because he was dying" and was shot at by the Civil Guard. "There are still open wounds from this," he acknowledges.
Without reaching a total closure again, in 2014 another episode of tension occurred when the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Margallo, ordered stricter controls at the border. The kilometer-long queues affected the approximately 15,000 cross-border workers, who arrived late or could not go to their jobs, and discouraged those who crossed to shop or for tourism.
The persistent fear among residents of Campo de Gibraltar who travel daily to the Rock to work, and also among Gibraltarians themselves, that the Border Gate could close again or that measures would be imposed that would hinder transit will be dispelled with the new Treaty.
From July 15, those who cross the land border between Spain and Gibraltar, in either direction, will no longer have to show their passport first to the National Police and then to the Gibraltarian agents.
The checks will be moved to the airport, where the National Police will verify that passengers arriving by plane in Gibraltar meet the requirements to enter the Schengen area, after an initial check carried out by the Gibraltarian authorities.
To avoid the deployment of Spanish police in the port, the other external access route to the Rock, the Government of Gibraltar has decided to suspend the ferries that connected the British colony with Morocco. Only in the event that a private vessel arrives, its occupants will be disembarked and taken to the airport to undergo the corresponding control.
The practical elimination of the Fence has generated concern among the 'Llanitos', as Gibraltarians are colloquially known, due to a possible increase in insecurity. Picardo has tried to allay these fears by reinforcing personnel and installing video surveillance cameras and facial recognition systems.
Furthermore, the Government of Gibraltar has insisted that the entire structure separating the British colony from Spain will not disappear, but rather that "the only stretch without a border fence will be the approximately 150-meter area where pedestrians have always crossed."
"The only point through which passage will be possible will be the one through which passage has always been made, and that stretch will have a massive presence of police, cameras, and vehicles to ensure that no one who should not enter Gibraltar does so," the Chief Minister stressed a few days ago during a visit to the area.
In this regard, the Government of Gibraltar has detailed that the old chain-link and barbed wire fence is being removed to install a new high-security barrier a few meters away, also "anti-climb," similar to the one used on the perimeters of United Kingdom military installations.