Every weekday morning, Shilpi Chotrani rides her bicycle from her home in the Spanish town of La Línea de la Concepción to Gibraltar. It's a short journey – but it means crossing an international border, and during rush hour, when around 15,000 Spaniards who work in the territory stream across, there can be long, time-consuming queues. “The fact that there is a border between us is ridiculous,” says Chotrani, who works in human resources for a Gibraltarian shipping and tourism company. “I don't think a fence should separate people from one place and another.”
That fence has stood since 1908, a physical scar on a landscape that has witnessed military battles, sovereignty disputes and a 13-year blockade imposed by Spain. Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory of around 40,000 inhabitants perched at the southern tip of mainland western Europe, is just nine miles from Morocco, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean. But from 15 July, a carefully negotiated post-Brexit agreement between the European Union and the UK will see the border removed, allowing freedom of movement between Spain and Gibraltar for the first time in 118 years.
“Gibraltar's 118-year-old border with Spain to be removed from 15 July, ending queues and boosting local economies.”
“This is going to be a great step forward, both for the Spanish side and the British side,” says Chotrani. “All of those of us who live [in La Línea de la Concepción] think this is a great idea. This should have been done a long time ago.”
The economic stakes are enormous. Gibraltar has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, but La Línea de la Concepción and the surrounding area is one of the most deprived parts of Spain, with unemployment close to 30%. The removal of the border is expected to boost the flow of people and trade, redressing the imbalance. “This is something historic, we've had a border fence since 1908,” says Juan Franco, the mayor of La Línea. “You have to realise that for an average company in this town a third of its income is from clients in Gibraltar.” After a decade of uncertainty following the UK's vote to leave the EU, Franco says he believes “this solution to Brexit will end up having a positive effect for us”.