Varadkar calls for calm as Spain threatens Brexit veto
TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar yesterday said Europe will have to work to ‘allay the concerns’ of Spain over Gibraltar if the EU is to reach a deal with the UK at tomorrow’s Brexit summit in Brussels.
He was speaking last night after Spain gave British prime minister Theresa May a 24-hour deadline to come forward with new promises over Gibraltar or expect the cancellation of tomorrow’s summit.
The warning was issued by Spain’s minister for the EU, Luis Marco Aguiriano, during a visit to the Belgian capital for eleventh-hour talks over the issue.
Madrid is threatening to veto the Brexit deal over a five-line passage, called Article 184, in the 585-page Withdrawal Agreement.
It wants extra text to explicitly spell out that it will have a veto over how a future trade deal applies to Gibraltar.
But Mr Aguiriano said yesterday that Spain has yet to see that text.
Mr Varadkar said: ‘I think it’s very important that we listen to the concerns that the Spanish government have. [Prime minister] Pedro Sánchez is in Cuba at the moment, but he will be in Brussels on Sunday,’ he said.
‘So we’ll certainly listen to the concerns of the Spanish government and we’ll do our best to allay the concerns that they have.’
He added: ‘There’s a mechanism through which we can do that, perhaps through a very strong political declaration from all the member states. That will have to be worked out between now and then.’
Mr Aguiriano said: ‘We are waiting to see that declaration in a written form, we have demanded that it’s made public before the European Council [summit tomorrow] and as soon as we have that written compromise, with the other documents mentioned, the foreign minister and the PM will have to take a decision.’
At tomorrow’s summit, the EU leaders would expect to endorse the treaty and approve the declaration by consensus, which means Spain, in effect, has the power to hold up the process.
Mr Sánchez had already threatened to veto the Brexit deal if his demands are not met.