I'm assuming that'll be the case (and that there'll be a grade of codification of existing practice), but who knows?

Study trip to La Linea for 10 April to check out the effects?

Goes off to check on the Sovereign Bases

In sum

Might all work out, but poor (long- and short-term) management of the issue isn't going to help matters

/end

From what we know in Gib, govt there needs several weeks to sort the physical elements, so there has to be a push to signing very soon

And if anyone in govt was worried about bad press, not clear that keeping details secret was Route One

16/

So now we have a rush to work out:
- how much provisional implementation can be done immediately in legal terms
- how much physical work is needed for that provisional implementation (largely on Gib side of border)

15/

To be clear, broad outlines seem apparent from last June, and the political fuss seemed to be managable in both UK and ES at the time, so even the obvious explanation of avoiding difficult conversations doesn't immediately hold up

14/

As @stevepeers.bsky.social points out, given scrubbing as apparently done in Dec, unclear why it continues to be held back

bsky.app/profile/stev...

13/

And no one in Spain has seen the text, outside a few in govt

euroweeklynews.com/2026/02/16/g...

12/

For context, Gib govt has been briefing stakeholders for the last month, following in-camera reviews of the unscrubbed text

www.chronicle.gi/preparatory-...

11/

However that scrubbing has run and run, to the point that it's only now the EU is prepping for signing the treaty, 7 weeks out from EES

ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

10/

The argument was that the legal text needed to be scrubbed - checked line-by-line to make sure everything's ship-shape and not going to cause unanticipated effects

Standard procedure (and reason why WA & TCA contained passerelles to allow for running amendments after their speedy conclusions)

9/

That's still 9 months to get ready though

Unless you don't release anything more after that political text

Which they didn't

8/

What was clear was that the looming arrival of the EU's Entry-Exit System (EES) was finally forcing minds, as would no longer by acceptable to fudge things come full implementation of the system

EES got pushed back somewhat, but we now have 10 April 2026 as a hard date

7/

Finally, last June, a political agreement was reached, with everyone on board for the deal

However, that agreement was rather short on details

ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

6/

Fair to say, that process has not been at all quick or public: certainly been the hardest (in my experience) to get any one to talk about, usually because things were at 'a sensitive stage'

5/

By the time the Withdrawal Agreement was finally getting agreed, Gibraltar had its own protocol and a UK-ES pathway to negotiate a deal

www.gov.uk/government/n...

4/

Within a month of the referendum, then For Sec (a Mr. B. Johnson) was meeting the Chief Minister to say nice things about sorting it

www.gov.uk/government/n...

3/

Since before the 2016 #EURef, it's been clear that an decision to leave the EU would cause big issues for Gibraltar, given its deep integration into the regional economy, which depends on free movement across the border

2/

Art.15(5) TEU - qualified majority