THE PEOPLE of Gibraltar may soon find themselves having to pay to leave and enter their peninsula as the Spanish mayor of neighbouring La Linea, in Spain, plans a toll charge on traffic to The Rock.
Mayor Alejandro Sánchez says he will introduce the scheme within the next two months. The only people guaranteed exemption from the tax on Gibraltar traffic, which he compares to London’s congestion charge, will be the those living in La Linea itself.
Visitors and commercial traffic in and out of Gibraltar will have to pay €5 or more. Mr Sanchez has still not said whether he will exempt the 30,000 native Gibraltarians, many of whom live on mainland Spain and commute through La Linea daily to work, or who live in the peninsula but travel to Spain at weekends. “That question is still on the table,” he said.
The move is bound to add tension to the already thorny relations between Britain and Spain over the peninsula, which Spain claims despite Gibraltar being in British hands since 1713. Mr Sánchez says La Linea’s town hall coffers, hit by Spain’s ailing economy and government austerity plans, need refilling and that visitors who pass through the town to get to Gibraltar must contribute.
It is still not clear whether his plan is legal, however, as Spain’s central government and not the town hall controls most of the roads leading into Gibraltar.
The economies of Gibraltar and La Linea are inexorably linked, with many local Spaniards employed there.
“Do not impose a toll,” the Social and Cultural Association of Spanish Workers in Gibraltar protested.
“La Linea benefits hugely from Gibraltar’s prosperity with 12,000 mouths fed by wages earned in Gibraltar pounds.”