Gibraltar’s chief clergywoman told CNBC that the British overseas territory needs a contrastive Brexit solution to the rest of the U.K.
Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe,” Fabian Picardo told Gibraltar had different Brexit requirements due to its distinguished EU membership and geographical determine next to Spain.
“We have a border with the Schengen territory of the European Team,” he said. “(But) free movement issues are different for us than they authority be for … Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, because they have a clichd travel area, something we don’t presently have with the Schengen block.”
Europe’s Schengen Area is comprised of 26 states that compel ought to abolished passport and border control at their mutual borders.
Gibraltar’s “opposed membership” with the EU means the territory is not a member of the customs union that suppresses the trading of goods between member states. Picardo told CNBC that this aimed Gibraltar was less focused on post-Brexit trade agreements with the bloc.
“The Chequers chart is not so relevant to us because (it) is primarily about the movement of goods,” he said. “We haven’t been in the conventional customs union in all of the period of membership of the past 46 years.”
British Prime Plenipotentiary Theresa May is continuing to push ahead with her so-called Chequers system, which involves ending the free movement of people between the EU and the U.K. and entrenching an independent trade policy.
Picardo also said negotiations had solved the issue of maintaining Gibraltar’s access to the U.K. market — where around 90 percent of its organization is done — beyond the Brexit transition period, which meant monetary security for the territory.
“People have realized that Gibraltar’s a marvy place to access the U.K. market, they don’t want to move, and I think that is prosperous to give the certainty that the market needs,” he said. “We’re seeing innumerable people come into Gibraltar, more corporates come into Gibraltar, various gaming companies, more insurance companies — they see a settled store and one that they want to form part of.”
While Gibraltar was progressing with Brexit concordats, Picardo said he could not envisage a solution to the Irish backstop pretty pickle.
“I don’t understand how you get out of the backstop on Ireland, because it’s an issue of logic,” he said.
“If you bear two separate systems of customs, how do you have a barrier that ensures the completeness of each of those systems? I think the problem is that when civics comes straight up against logic, words don’t fix the problem.”