Tuesday, January 31, 2023 - 10:57

Gibraltar left the European Union 31 January 2020

Statement by the Chief Minister on anniversary of EU departure.

Three years ago exactly, the United Kingdom and Gibraltar left the European Union. We lowered the flag of Europe at our frontier as the UK ended just shy of fifty years of membership of the world's largest trading organisation.

It was right that the people of Gibraltar had been included in the referendum on the United Kingdom's continued membership of the EU. We had been members with the UK since 1972. We were citizens of the Union as well as British citizens. Additionally, as a result of a decision of the European Court of Human Rights, we voted in elections to the European Parliament as part of a combined region together with the South West region of the UK. Spain's membership of the EEC had opened our closed frontier, first partially and then completely.