A massive Brexit row has erupted after Spanish border police tightened controls at the Gibraltar border.
Spanish border police stamped the passports of Gibraltarian red ID card holders on Friday afternoon sparked fears of another tit-for-tat exchange of tighter immigration controls.
Gibraltar citizens have red ID cards, which allow them to cross into Spain without requiring their passport to be stamped or having to provide further evidence of their reasons for travel. As many as 15,000 residents cross the border daily for work.
However, this is a transitional measure while negotiations regarding Gibraltar continue between the EU and the UK with the measures reportedly making Spanish police officers uneasy.
As a result a senior Policia Nacional officer on duty at the border made the order to stamp passports.
The measure started at around midday and remained in place until about 1.45pm.
The officer in question has reportedly written on four occasions to Spain’s Ministry of the Interior seeking written authority to waive the Schengen controls but had yet to receive it.
On Friday, he was finally ordered by the provincial Policia Nacional headquarters to lift the controls, Spanish media reported.
“Once again, decisions of the type taken today by the rogue officer in question cause difficulties for ordinary people who need or wish to move from one side of the frontier to the other, when the sole reason for being a public servant or in public life should be to make the lives of people easier so long as they are in keeping with all applicable rules and relevant agreements entered into between nations,” a spokesperson for No.6 Convent Place said.
This comes just a month after 12,000 protesters took to the streets of La Linea, located next to Gibraltar, demanding a Brexit treaty.
The protest, organised by local officials and supported by political and social groups, called for “special measures” to protect the city’s economy, which has been affected by the delays in reaching a Brexit agreement.
Upon reaching the border, a sea of people stretched back toward the city centre, demonstrating the city’s unity.
Crowds of people held placards saying, “Deal now,” in response to the dragging three-year EU negotiations with no agreement in sight.
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