A border fence separating two countries was just literally torn down | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

While geographically located on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula and bordering Spain, the territory of Gibraltar has belonged to Great Britain since 1707 when Anglo-Dutch forces troops captured it in the War of the Spanish Succession and cemented this control through the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

Emerging from the 1,398-foot-tall limestone Rock of Gibraltar at its southwestern tip, the Gibraltar peninsula spans just three miles in length and 0.75 miles in width but is of critical strategic and commercial importance as a chokepoint connecting Europe to Northern Africa and the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

While tensions over Gibraltar continued to ebb and come back into focus over the last 300 years (the Spanish government officially considers the peninsula a natural part of its territory that should be ceded by the UK as a historical anachronism), Spain and the United Kingdom cemented a post-Brexit agreement that brought down a 1.2-kilometer fence separating Gibraltar.

Fence between Gibraltar and Spain torn down as historic treaty signed

The fence was initially erected by the British in 1909 to reduce the number of soldiers they had guarding the area while Spanish dictator Francisco Franco heavily fortified it in 1969 as part of an attempt to pressure the British to give up the territory. The fence was reopened to pedestrians and later motorists in the 1980s but, after the United Kingdom left the European Union in 2020, the country once again put up border checkpoints.

With the agreement to eliminate these border checks and facilitate travel between the territory and the rest of Spain signed by Spanish and UK representatives in Brussels on July 14, the fence was finally officially torn down at midnight leading into the next day.

Gibraltar is home to a permanent population of just over 40,000 residents while approximately 15,500 people cross the border with Spain for work or family reasons every day.

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located by the southern tip of Spain.

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“It is a very special feeling to see a fence come down”: Both sides cheer dismantling of Gibraltar fence

“It has taken four years of patient, complex negotiation, but the outcome speaks for itself,” Maroš Šefčovič, the European Union Commissioner for Trade who oversaw the agreement, said in a July 14 speech to a cheering crowd waving Spanish and British flags. “It is a very special feeling to see a fence come down.”

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The territory is home to the small Gibraltar International Airport (GIB) that will, as part of the treaty, be managed by Spanish border police and fall under Schengen entry rules.

With the local culture emerging as a blend of both British and Mediterranean, the peninsula is a popular destination both as a day trip from other cities in southern Spain and as a port stop on cruises around the Mediterranean Sea. Some will also come in for duty-free shopping as the territory has popular UK brands like Marks & Spencer and Next without the VAT tax added to goods sold in both the UK and the EU.