Gibraltar fears Spain border will close if UK leaves EU

Associated Press

MADRID

Gibraltar could find its access to the single European market blocked by a hostile Spanish government if the United Kingdom were to vote to leave the European Union in a referendum next month, the chief minister of the tiny British territory on Spain’s southwestern tip said Sunday.

Fabian Picardo told The Associated Press that Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo had warned that if Britain exits the EU, the Popular Party government currently in power would “require that we accept joint sovereignty with Spain to have access to the market.”

Picardo said British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond had acknowledged that the European mechanisms in place to keep the frontier between Spain and Gibraltar flowing “will not be available to us if we are not members of the EU.”