The right of EU nationals and workers to free movement through EU borders is a cornerstone of the European Union. Yet the Spanish government has been allowed to use its border with Gibraltar as a political stick with which to beat EU residents in the area through the creation of lengthy delays. Gibraltar and Spain are both in the European Union. In fact Gibraltar was in Europe 13 years before Spain joined. Gibraltar does not belong to the customs union or to Schengen, which means that Madrid is entitled to conduct checks at the border. However, such checks have to be proportionate and intelligence led. This is not happening.
At the end of July, there were delays to cars of up to eight hours to cross the border from Gibraltar into Spain. This affected over 7000 workers of different EU nationalities, the majority of whom are Spanish, who work in Gibraltar and who live in Spain. It affected tourists and it affected other residents of Gibraltar who wanted to cross the border. The intensity of the Spanish checks and the physical layout of the infrastructure at the border both contributed to the problem. There are six lanes of traffic leaving Gibraltar. These converge into two for Spanish passport control and then to only one green lane for Spanish customs. The Spanish customs authorities often ignore the red and green channels and stop every single car on that solitary green lane. They do not allow cars to continue while others are being checked. This accentuates the bottleneck effect that already exists because of the physical layout.
These tight controls still continue although they have not reached eight hours. It is still common for motorists to be made to wait two to three hours to cross into Spain. In a new development after the summer, the Spanish authorities started to create delays to exit Spain as well as to enter Spain. There can be no justification for such delays. Moreover, as from December they imposed the same rigorous checks on pedestrians that cars had been subjected to since the summer. These delays to pedestrians have been known to last two hours. In winter, this means standing in the cold or in the rain no matter your age or your physical condition because the Spanish authorities want to make a political point.
The United Kingdom and the Gibraltar government have both publicly expressed the view that these delays are illegal. The European commission sent a visiting mission on 25 September. The mission expressed the view that they saw nothing illegal, which is not surprising given that the delays mysteriously disappeared on the day that they came. However, a number of recommendations were made to both sides. The government of Gibraltar has already started to act on those recommendations.
Hundreds of complaints have reached the government of Gibraltar through its frontier queue website. It is not surprising that a high proportion of these complaints are from EU nationals who work in Gibraltar and live in Spain. These people have to queue up to go to work in the morning and may then face a two-hour delay to enter Spain when they finish work in the evening. In December, the queue to enter Gibraltar passed the one-hour mark on 18 days. The queue to exit Gibraltar and enter Spain topped the one hour mark on 25 days, and the two-hour mark on 19 of those days. There are still lengthy delays even though the number of cars crossing the border is down by 40 per cent.
This has the potential to hurt the economy of a cross-frontier area. Trade unions and business organisations from both sides of the border have got together to complain at the damage that the actions of the Spanish government is causing to workers and to commerce. They are joined in this by the mayor of the Spanish frontier town of La Linea.
The degree of suffering that the Spanish authorities have inflicted on persons crossing the border is beyond belief. It is totally unacceptable that the right to freedom of movement should be trampled upon in this way and it is even more incredible that this should be happening in the new, modern Europe of today.