Spanish ‘will not use EU deal talks to get Gibraltar back’

SPAIN will not seek to recover Gibraltar during Brexit talks, its foreign minister has said.

Authorities in the British territory had feared the Spanish would try to influence the complex negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom in order to regain authority over it.

But Alfonso Dastis insisted he did not want to “jeopardise” the deal by demanding that Gibraltar change its status – a stance that Britain would likely never accept.

“I won’t make an agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom conditional on recovering sovereignty over Gibraltar,” he said.

But he added that Spain’s proposal of joint sovereignty over the Rock, which would see people living there get Spanish nationality as well as British, still stood.

“We will try to convince the Gibraltarians that this is a route worth exploring and that it would benefit them too,” he said.

Spain has argued this will allow Gibraltar to stay in the 27-member bloc, but authorities there categorically reject the idea.