Gibraltar thrown into disarray before Brexit deal

Bloomberg

When Fabian Picardo became chief minister of Gibraltar — the rocky relic of British colonialism at the tip of Spain — he could scarcely have imagined that his main concern one day would be keeping shelves stocked at the local supermarkets.
That was before Brexit posed the greatest risk to the tiny territory and its 32,000 inhabitants in decades.
With the UK’s European Union exit date just four weeks away and no deal in sight to ensure smooth connections with the Spanish mainland, Gibraltar has been thrown into disarray. That’s forcing Picardo to focus on ensuring the fiercely pro-EU territory — 96 percent voted to remain in the bloc — is adequately supplied, with or without access to British comforts like Oxo instant gravy, Bovril beef extract and Branston pickle.
“My role as chief minister of Gibraltar, my core function in government, is to ensure that Gibraltar has food — not that it has particular British brands,” Picardo said, sitting in his office beneath a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.
Since a 13-year blockade by Spanish dictator Francisco Franco ended in 1982, Gibraltar has enjoyed relative tranquility, thriving on tourism and financial services. Its 300-year-old status as a British outpost guarding the narrow strait that separates the Mediterranean from the Atlantic had little noticeable impact since then, thanks to common membership in the EU.
Every day, roughly 15,300 workers — including 9,700 Spaniards — turn off Avenida Principe de Asturias in the town of La Linea and onto Winston Churchill Avenue, the only road into the territory. A visitor on foot flashes a passport to a lone Gibraltarian official while a bank of passport-reading machines on the Spanish side are only periodically in use — at least for now. Brexit threatens to bring that comfortable co-existence to an abrupt end.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who warned the EU to compromise, has a week to secure an agreement, with failure meaning the UK could leave the bloc without a deal on October 31 or suffer another humiliating postponement.
The British government laid out the range of problems facing the 2.6-square-mile territory in its so-called Yellowhammer report on the risks of a crash Brexit. It warned of border delays of more than four hours for at least a few months, as well as disruption to supplies of goods and medicines.
Another conundrum facing Picardo, who has been in charge of the territory’s 2.2 billion-pound ($2.7 billion) economy since 2011, is how Gibraltar will dispose of its waste if it loses access to a landfill facility shared with Spanish towns across the border.
“The prime minister has assured the chief minister that, as a member of the UK family, the UK will protect Gibraltar’s interests as we leave the EU,” a spokesperson for the British government said in an emailed statement. While the territory is responsible for its own preparations, there is regular contact to ensure that “robust plans are in place,” he added.
Gibraltar has been no stranger to tension since Spain ceded the Rock to Britain in 1713. The territory’s siege tunnels, old naval dockyards and former gun batteries all bear witness to its martial past.
Spain maintains its claim to the territory, and in 2016, the government even floated the idea that Brexit offered the best chance to reclaim control in centuries.