Antonio Postigo, his wife Francisca and their 11 children never lacked anything, until their entire world collapsed in 1969 due to a political decision. They covered their needs, without luxuries, thanks to the jobs that the man had in mind. Gibraltar and The Line. Everything went wrong when the Franco regime decided to close the border with the Rock in 1969, so the Postigos had no choice but to pack their bags and emigrate to Barcelona. Family history constantly assaults the mind of Javier Postigo, Antonio’s grandson, fearful that that calamity could happen to him again. He, a worker in Gibraltar in the social and health sector, is one of the 15,000 cross-border employees increasingly desperate due to the lack of a post-Brexit agreement with the British colony. And this Friday he attended a massive demonstration that toured the streets of the city of Cadiz, with 63,000 inhabitants, under the slogan “The Line counts. “We are not invisible.”
“We have already gone from the tense calm, now we have to move,” Postigo, 34, harangues, shortly before joining the protest, which, according to the town’s City Council, 12,000 people have attended (the Local Police have not made estimates). More than eight years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union – a referendum in which Gibraltar opted overwhelmingly to remain in it – and almost four years after that transitional agreement that cushioned the consequences of a hard Brexit while waiting for the final treaty , in the town bordering the Rock, they have said Enough. The residents have responded massively to the call of the Linense City Council for a march that, starting at 8:00 p.m., started in the Plaza Fariña to culminate on the sidewalk opposite the entrance to the Peñón border.
Nothing has changed since on New Year’s Eve 2020, Spain and the United Kingdom signed the transitional agreement that avoided the restrictions that would mean becoming a hard border with the European Union. For now, the 19 rounds of negotiations between both countries for the treaty that aims to eliminate border controls have not resulted in an agreement. But there has been a last straw that broke the camel’s back for the patience of the people of Linares and that showed them what the situation could be in the event that there is no agreement. On the night of October 10, the Spanish police decided to suspend the current transitional agreements and begin stamping passports of Gibraltarians and Britons residing in the Rock.
The measure, supposedly taken by one inspector, was responded to by the other and the Rock applied reciprocity to the Spanish workers during the early morning hours of the next day. “That was a monumental circulatory blockage. The queue reached Campamento (a district of the city of San Roque), summarizes the mayor of La Línea, Juan Franco. The measure caused scenes of chaos and uncertainty, with workers having to return home for their passport or discovering that their document had expired. “My brother-in-law ran to the police station. In the end, he couldn’t go to work,” explains Postigo.
All that chaos caught Franco about to give a press conference in which he had to evaluate the meeting he had that week—along with the rest of the region’s mayors—with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares. I was also thinking about talking about the new EES controls (Entry Exit System) that the European Union was going to apply at its external borders, but that was postponed that same week sine die. Fed up with so many unstable and changing scenarios waiting for an agreement that does not come and of which he does not know the details, the councilor has stood up. “Gibraltar has a contingency plan, or so it says, but we do not have any measures or, at least, they are not known, what will happen if there is no agreement,” the mayor asks.
The association of cross-border employees Ascteg already organized another similar march in October 2019 and in this Friday they confirmed that little has changed on that border that always keeps its associates “on alert and in suspense”, as its spokesperson, Juan, acknowledges. Jose Uceda. The legal advisor of the entity and worker in Gibraltar Antonio Sánchez has sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs an extensive report analyzing the socioeconomic reality of a city devastated by unemployment rates close to 27% and in which he assures that the apparent absence in Spain of “common policy with respect to the agreement and gives the impression of a constant struggle between the different administrations of the State, a situation that is taken advantage of, to their benefit, by both Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.”
Sánchez, present at the demonstration, is committed to “leaving partisan interests aside and maintaining a common front to defend our interests.” But he also defends the need to give unique treatment to La Líneaa claim that Juan Franco has raised for years and that led him to propose a citizen consultation – knocked down by the Government – to explore the path of becoming an autonomous city. In fact, a good part of that argument has floated in the march. “I have very serious problems of unemployment or poverty and they have not been addressed and we have come this far,” says the councilor. “It seems like a utopia that La Línea has fiscal improvements, but Ceuta, Melilla or the Basque Country already have them and it doesn’t seem like nonsense to me,” says Postigo.
“The City Council is not the one that has unemployed people, nor a life expectancy of 80 yearsthe city has them. We cannot be rowing alone,” adds Franco. And in that context, La Línea wonders what will become of the city, even if an agreement is reached. “What price is the square meter of my town going to cost if the border is removed. We are the most expensive home in the province, behind Cádiz capital, what agreement is being signed? “Our circumstances have not been taken into account,” the mayor adds.
While Spain and the United Kingdom are plucking the daisy, nerves are frayed in La Línea. After the latest row at the border, the police have had to reinforce appointments to renew passports, fearing new problems. Meanwhile, Postigo wonders if his fate will be like his grandfather’s: “If some trouble happens tomorrow, what company will take in those 15,000 people who are cross-border people. It’s impossible. Over time, fragments of the year 69 are emerging. No one has left the negotiating table, I hope they reach an agreement, but that they really explain to us what the zone of prosperity for all is.
