{"text":[[{"start":10.3,"text":"Britons flying to Gibraltar from the UK will have to go through the EU’s contentious new electronic border system from this week, as the after-effects of Brexit finally reach the rocky outpost."}],[{"start":21.85,"text":"Gibraltar — which has Britain’s only terrestrial border with the European continent — will become a de facto part of the EU’s Schengen free-movement area after midnight on Wednesday, when a new UK-EU treaty comes into force."}],[{"start":35.35,"text":"The agreement sealed last year meshes the UK’s divisive departure from the EU with the bloc’s troubled implementation of a new entry/exit system (EES), which requires fingerprint and face scans and has led to lengthy queues at some airports."}],[{"start":50.95,"text":"“I am concerned it could happen,” Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, told the FT, referring to the long lines. "}],[{"start":58.6,"text":"The EES came fully into force in April, but its rollout has been marred by technical issues and delays. Some countries have suspended part of the checks."}],[{"start":68.6,"text":"Gibraltar, which has a strategic position on the Mediterranean, was left out of a post-Brexit UK-EU trade deal that came into force at the end of 2020."}],[{"start":78.3,"text":"The negotiations over its status — between the UK and Gibraltar on one side and Spain and the EU on the other — lasted for three-and-a-half years and the parties finally struck a deal in June 2025."}],[{"start":91.85,"text":"The Spanish government, which does not recognise British sovereignty over Gibraltar, won control of EES checks in the treaty negotiations. It said its systems for passport, fingerprint and face scans were working “optimally” and will be deployed in the territory immediately."}],[{"start":108.3,"text":"An EU official said Spain was a “role model” when it came to implementing the system. “Among the countries with a lot of non-EU visitors, Spain is doing very well,” the official said."}],[{"start":119.75,"text":"Gibraltar’s airport receives about 300,000 passengers a year. All flights come from the UK and nearly 90 per cent of arrivals use the Rock as a route to holidays in southern Spain, according to the Gibraltar government."}],[{"start":130.7,"text":"Picardo said: “We tend to get one A320 [aircraft] every hour or so, so there should be time to clear the 140, 150 passengers before you have a build-up.”"}],[{"start":140.54999999999998,"text":"The EES will be used for UK and other non-EU citizens arriving in Gibraltar, but Gibraltar’s 38,000 residents have been exempted from the system under the new UK-EU treaty. Picardo noted that passengers who have registered with EES elsewhere will move more quickly through the system."}],[{"start":159.49999999999997,"text":"However, the start of school holidays in Britain could add complications. Children under 12 cannot have their fingerprints collected but still need to take a photo under the new checks. At Spanish airports with too few border police on duty, flights with large numbers of British families have caused queues."}],[{"start":176.79999999999998,"text":"“This will be a work in progress for us as we start this operation,” Picardo said."}],[{"start":182.35,"text":"Gibraltarian officials will carry out their own passport checks. But the UK and Gibraltar accepted having Spanish border police at the airport as the price for removing all passport controls on the adjacent Gibraltar-Spain land border, a key win for the British Overseas Territory’s economy."}],[{"start":199.79999999999998,"text":"Had no deal been reached, Gibraltar faced the prospect of a hard land border with full passport checks and hours-long queues. That would have strangled its economy, which depends on 15,000 workers who commute from Spain every day, and hobbled Gibraltarians who drive into Spain for shopping and leisure."}],[{"start":218.2,"text":"But Picardo bristled at the suggestion that Spanish border police represented “boots on the ground” in Gibraltar, something he had long insisted was unacceptable."}],[{"start":227.35,"text":"He said they would work at a joint facility added to the airport — he dubbed it the “Schengen shack” — which will be half in Gibraltar and half in Spain. “The boots will be contained within that, which is exactly what we set out to do.”"}],[{"start":240.5,"text":"Juan Franco, mayor of La Línea de la Concepción, the Spanish border town next to Gibraltar, said it was inevitable that Spanish police would have a role. “Everyone has to give a little. And obviously, if you’re going to enter the Schengen area via a land border with Spain who is going to check you? The Lithuanian police?”"}],[{"start":258.45,"text":"As the hours to the end of the land frontier ticked down, there was no sign of a pre-emptive relaxing of the rules on Monday."}],[{"start":265.65,"text":"A tearful Spanish woman pleaded with a UK border official to let her into Gibraltar, saying she had lost her ID card at the weekend but needed to get to work. “I promise I’ll get a new one later today and come with it tomorrow,” she said in Spanish."}],[{"start":281.15,"text":"“I don’t understand. I’m English,” the border official said. “You need your passport. You have to go back.”"}],[{"start":287.15,"text":"Additional reporting by Carmen Muela in Madrid"}],[{"start":296.99999999999994,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1784018406_1867.mp3"}