See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy SABRINA PENTY, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER Published: 10:28 BST, 15 July 2026 | Updated: 10:29 BST, 15 July 2026
Spain is celebrating new post-Brexit border controls that will see Brits having their fingerprints and passports checked when entering Gibraltar.The new measure, which will take effect on Wednesday, will see the old border post with Spain torn down, while Spanish checks will be moved to the international airport and seaport instead. It comes as Britain and the European Union formally signed a treaty on the status of Gibraltar on Tuesday, following an agreement struck last year to ease border crossings and end years of political uncertainty over the British overseas territory.The UK's Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty said on Tuesday that the agreement secured Gibraltar's long-term economic future and interests. Meanwhile, the Spanish socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has hailed the move as 'Europe's last wall coming down.'However, critics on Tuesday condemned the Labour government for relinquising 'hundreds of years of British sovereignty.'The new system on the Rock means Britons arriving by land and sea must show their passports to local officials and then Spanish guards before having their fingerprints taken. Gibraltar residents can cross over to Spain using residence cards without needing to have their passports stamped, while Spanish citizens can cross using a government ID card. People walk across the border as workers with a crane remove the iron gates of the border between Spain and Gibraltar (UK) in La Linea, 15 July 2026, after the dismantling of the border fence the previous eveningWith the border fence gone, Gibraltar officials have set up live facial recognition cameras at entry points and throughout the territory.The deal is designed to facilitate the movement of people and goods and avoid lengthy delays for the roughly 15,000 workers who cross the border each day.Gibraltar's chief minister Fabian Picardo, who is also a member of the Labour Party, took part in the signing ceremony alongside British and Spanish ministers in Brussels on Tuesday.He said the agreement had taken down 'the physical barriers of a bygone era of friction', while keeping 'the keys to our own front door'.Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said the deal opened a new chapter for Gibraltar, Spain, Britain and the European Union. He said it would benefit the 300,000 residents of the Campo de Gibraltar region by improving connectivity, encouraging investment and strengthening cross-border cooperation, while replacing centuries of mistrust with a shared future built on coexistence and prosperity.But the new controls to enter the British Overseas Territory have raised fears about sovereignty, surveillance and queues caused by the EU's entry and exit system. Speaking to The Telegraph, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: 'This is a dreadful surrender and the opening of the border means that Gibraltar will never be the same.'The former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: 'This arrangement will in future years be used as a model for weak negotiation. It will be a significant step in the stripping out of hundreds of years of British sovereignty.' Spaniards and Gibraltarians gather at the entrance to Gibraltar to celebrate the disappearance of the border between Gibraltar and Spain, in Gibraltar on July 15, 2026The contested British Overseas Territory of 38,000 people is perched at the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula, in a strategic location mere miles from Morocco, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea. Britain won Gibraltar - a strategically important enclave at the southern tip of Spain - in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which ended the War of Spanish Succession. When Britain left the EU in 2020, the relationship between Gibraltar and the bloc had been left unresolved.Previous talks on a deal to ensure people and goods could keep flowing across the border had made halting progress. In 2025, the EU and UK announced an agreement on those issues, with the two sides and Gibraltar's government signing a treaty on Tuesday that eases border crossings.
