Of the four elements that went to make up the Cordoba Agreement only one – the Spanish pensions issue – has been fulfilled in its entirety. The other three have had a more chequered 12 months. Taking each in turn…

The expanded use of the airport was adopted with great enthusiasm last December both by our own local carrier GB Airways and by Spain’s Iberia. Last month’s announcement that GB Airways will suspend its winter schedule to Madrid is disappointing but the harsh world of airline economics coupled with very tight turnaround times makes the news not entirely surprising. The Chamber has always had reservations on the route schedules in place and these would seem to be an excuse for failure unless the schedules are changed to meet the needs of the business community. New routes always take time to establish themselves and to build up regular custom. When the new terminal and airport link road is fully functional it is hoped that the suspended service will be reinstated along with other new routes.

The telecoms issue certainly had a bumpy introduction although the high levels of complaints received by the Chamber from members in the spring of this year seem to have tailed off. This would imply that most callers outside of Gibraltar have at last got the message about our international dialling code.

The fourth and final issue, the freer flowing frontier, has been perhaps the most disappointing. Yes it has got better but it should have got a lot better. It is this that perhaps best encapsulates the willingness of the parties to the Cordoba Agreement to remove frustrations and build genuine cross-border trust.

The two green channels promised by Spain on crossing the frontier into their side have rarely been in operation in the last 12 months. Queues of 45 minutes and longer have been an all too common occurrence throughout the hot summer months.

Similarly, Spain’s offer to operate a dual lane to enter Gibraltar has never been put into effect properly and operates only as a dual lane at the frontier post itself rather than in the approach lanes on the Spanish side. Of course excuses may be offered by Spanish officialdom but the suspicion locally is that the initial excitement about Cordoba was perhaps overdone by the Spaniards and they can now resume “service as usual”.

At the East Gate the stubborn persistence of Spanish customs to operate a limited service for clearing goods exiting Spain to Gibraltar compounds the sense among many local traders that Spanish authorities’ enthusiasm for cooperation with Gibraltar is lukewarm at best.

Spain’s Report Card: MUST TRY HARDER
A year ago the Chamber commented that in such complex negotiations there would inevitably be teething problems. There have been, but most of these have been resolved. The problems which exist – the queues and other obfuscations are not teething problems at all but the continued mistreatment of one small EU country by another much larger one. The need for building trust has never been greater and without it the initial positive achievements of Cordoba will be an all too brief and irrelevant chapter in the Gibraltar story. But trust needs affirmative action to be taken by both sides. Gibraltar can honestly put its hand up and say it has played its part. Spain now needs to follow through.

As an old Chinese proverb says: one generation plants the trees; the next generation gets the shade. Looking back over the last 12 months it seems as though it has been only the generation on this side of the frontier that has been busy planting the trees.