Still no deal

Jan 17 2023 Spain’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that Madrid and London were closing in on a deal to find a definitive solution settling the post-Brexit status of Gibraltar. The status of Gibraltar and how to police the border with Spain has been a point of contention since Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union. The peninsula was excluded from the exit deal reached between Britain and the EU.

“I see a constructive spirit from the British side on the agreement related to Gibraltar,” Spain’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jose Manuel Albares told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

That was the state of play as of January and still here in the heat of August when temperatues are at their highest the queues are at their longest. Crazily the last week or so the queues late evening when normally steady have been 2 hours or more. Part of that is the Spanish side closing the main exit and turning one of the normal daily entry roads into a single exit lane and there is sense in that given the night shift manpower is less but it doesn’t help the weary workers or travellers heading home at 8, 9 or 10pm. The politicians including our very own Chief Minister Fabian Picardo announce that we are close to a deal still and clearly the people on both sides want it but as ever the people elected to speak for the people find it hard to come to a conclusion. To be fair it is an enigmatic puzzle with history, passion and politics mixed together and often common sense seems not to be the route to agreement. As many are heard to say in this world facts don’t mind your feelings but feelings ride high on this one to be fair on both sides of the fence. Let’s hope we get there soon and all the worry and doubt, people, businesses and familes have should disappear overnight, after a party of course.