Gibraltar with no border: why a Spanish march will never happen

Ten thousand at the gates of Gibraltar: the march nobody will stage

The provocation has some substance to it: gathering 10,000 Spaniards in front of the Rock to see how the British react. Some predict they would open fire; others point out that thousands of workers cross every day to earn a living. The reality, as almost always, is a stalemate: there is no fence, no control and, above all, no migratory incentive to sustain any comparison with Ceuta and Melilla.

Gibraltar is already part of the Schengen area

The situation changed without many people noticing. Gibraltar is completely open: a Spaniard comes and goes as if heading to Benidorm. There is no border checkpoint in La Línea and no troops stationed there; at most, if 20,000 people showed up looking for trouble, British riot police would appear, not a regiment. The difference with Ceuta and Melilla is enormous: there you find fences, razor wire and queues of migrants looking for a way in. Here the Spanish worker is a legal passer-by, identified and with a contract.

The economic factor that defuses the march

Those who compare it with Segarro's Green March forget that Spain has no pool of desperate people willing to risk their lives for a flag. In that Sahara of 1975 there was an impoverished population mobilised from above; today no such Spanish demographic pressure exists. Besides, why invade a place you can already set foot in freely? The United Kingdom does not hand out nationalities or easy handouts, and the Spaniard who wants to make money in Gibraltar already does so: crossing daily, paying social security and going back home. The asymmetry is one of geography and law: an isthmus of just over a kilometre with a single entry point, where everyone is filmed and identified.

The Treaty of Utrecht is still there

For anyone still in an epic mood, the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht ceded Gibraltar "in perpetuity". You do not need to believe in its sarracena validity to accept the material cost of ignoring it: nuclear submarines included. The reality is that the "invasion" is already happening, but in a suit and tie: thousands of Spaniards sustain the economy of the Rock, and that mutual dependence is the best insurance against any adventure. In the end, the question is not whether Spain will recover Gibraltar, but how many Spaniards need it to remain British so their paycheques do not disappear. The striking fact: the march will not happen because they are already inside, over and over, every morning.