The European Commission confirmed on 12 December that negotiators from the EU, the UK, Gibraltar and Spain had successfully completed work on the legal text of a new treaty to govern Gibraltar’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU after almost four years of negotiations. A political agreement on the key elements was reached last June.
“The text is currently undergoing legal review by the EU and the UK before we can proceed with our respective internal procedures leading to the signature and conclusion of the future Agreement,” said a Commission spokesperson.
“The main objective of the future Agreement is to secure the future prosperity of the whole region. This will be done by removing all physical barriers to the movement of persons and goods between Spain and Gibraltar, while preserving the Schengen area, the EU Single Market and Customs Union. This will bring confidence and legal certainty to the lives and well-being of the people of the whole region by promoting shared prosperity.”
Once the legal review is complete, the agreement can proceed to ratification. It is understood that, as an EU agreement, ratification will only be required in the European Parliament rather than the national parliaments of each member state. For the UK, the ratification process will start with a motion in the Gibraltar parliament calling on the UK to ratify the treaty, after which it will have to be approved in the UK Parliament.
The Gibraltar government, which has now approved the text for ratification, said it welcomed the “positive conclusion” of the negotiation on the treaty text.
“As we work with the UK to bring this part of the process to a swift conclusion, the text is undergoing a rigorous technical and legal review,” said a government spokesperson. “We remain committed to transparency: the final treaty will be made public and subject to the full scrutiny of the Gibraltar, UK and EU parliaments as part of the process of ratification.”
“This agreement was negotiated with the EU by the Gibraltar government alongside the UK government and promises to be a good deal for Gibraltar after many years of uncertainty,” said Alex Powell, Managing Director of Sovereign Trust (Gibraltar).
“No fixed implementation date has been set, but commentators have suggested mid-2026 at the earliest as a plausible timeframe for provisional arrangements or formal enactment. The precise schedule will depend on the completion of ratification procedures in Gibraltar, the UK and the EU. We will keep clients posted on progress.”
