Way clear for EU exit vote
Gibraltar deal with Spain, Britain settles last big snag
BRUSSELS — On the eve of today’s European Union summit, Spain announced that it had reached an agreement with Britain over Gilbraltar, removing the last major obstacle in sealing a deal for the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU.
Today, the leaders of the 28 EU countries will meet in Brussels to vote on the departure plans and an accompanying political declaration on the future ties between Britain and the 27 remaining EU nations.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, who arrived Saturday evening in Brussels for preparatory talks with EU leaders, still must sell the deal to a recalcitrant British Parliament and a nation fundamentally split over whether the U.K. should leave the EU on March 29 and under what conditions.
She has vowed to campaign “with my heart and soul” to win Parliament’s backing for the deal.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced
While Sanchez claimed victory, May’s compromise angered people in her party, for whom the sovereignty of the 2.6-square-mile strip of British land adjoining the Spanish coast is a totemic issue.
Saturday that Madrid would support the British divorce deal, after the U.K. and the EU agreed to give Spain a say in the future of Gilbraltar, a disputed British territory on the southern tip of Spain.
Spain wanted the future of the tiny territory — which was ceded to Britain in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht but is still claimed by Spain — to be a bilateral issue between Madrid and London, not between Britain and the EU.
In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, European Commission President JeanClaude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk assured Sanchez that Spain’s “prior agreement” would be needed on matters concerning Gibraltar.
“Europe and the United Kingdom have accepted the conditions imposed by Spain,” Sanchez said. “Therefore, as a consequence of this, Spain will lift its veto and tomorrow will vote in favor of Brexit.”
While Sanchez claimed victory, May’s compromise angered people in her party, for whom the sovereignty of the 2.6-square-mile strip of British land adjoining the Spanish coast is a totemic issue.
Owen Paterson, a former minister and pro-exit campaigner, said May’s concession was “utterly shameful.” Gibraltar “should be free to enjoy the benefits of any new trade deals signed by a newly independent U.K.,” he told Bloomberg.
Nadine Dorries said May had “abandoned” Gibraltar and “capitulated to every single EU demand.”
May defended her decision, insisting that the U.K.’s policy hadn’t changed.
“We will always negotiate on behalf of the whole U.K. family, including Gibraltar,” she said Saturday in Brussels, where she was in talks with Tusk. “I’m proud that Gibraltar is British, and I will always stand by Gibraltar.”
The move should allow EU leaders to speedily sign off on Britain’s exit agreement at today’s special summit.
Sanchez said the agreement will give Spain “absolute guarantees to resolve the conflict that has lasted for more than 300 years before Spain and the U.K.”
In a 2002 referendum, Gilbraltar overwhelming rejected a proposal of joint British-Spanish rule, instead opting to remain under the sovereignty of Britain. In the 2016 EU referendum, Gibraltarians voted 96 percent to remain in the European Union.
Gilbraltar and Spain have deep ties with each other — an estimated 12,000 workers cross the border every day.
Spain couldn’t officially “veto” the EU withdrawal agreement, a 585-page legally binding document. The EU has worked hard to present a 27-nation united front during exit negotiations with Britain.
“I will recommend that we approve on Sunday the outcome of the #Brexit negotiations,” Tusk tweeted Saturday. “No one has reasons to be happy. But at least at this critical time, the EU27 has passed the test of unity and solidarity.”
May was on her way to Brussels when the deal was reached Saturday and hopes to leave EU headquarters today with a firm agreement on Britain’s EU withdrawal terms, as well as a comprehensive negotiating text on what future relations should look like once both sides approve a trade agreement.
May is likelier to get warm greetings from her 27 fellow EU leaders today than from her colleagues in government and Parliament once she returns home. She is under intense pressure from pro-departure and pro-EU British lawmakers, with large numbers on both sides opposing the divorce deal and threatening to vote it down when it goes to Parliament next month.
The leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, on which May relies to get her government majority, on Saturday rejected the planned exit deal, saying it would drive a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Arlene Foster said in Belfast that the deal agreed to by May is unacceptable and must be improved upon in the weeks ahead.
She said the draft agreement raises constitutional questions, and she insisted on “an outcome that does not leave Northern Ireland open to the perils of increased divergence away from the rest of the United Kingdom.”
The Democratic Unionist Party has said it may drop its backing of Britain’s government because of the exit plan.
May insists that her deal delivers on the things that matter most to pro-exit voters — control of budgets, immigration policy and laws — while retaining close ties to the U.K.’s European neighbors.
She plans to spend the next couple of weeks selling it to politicians and the British public before Parliament’s vote in December.
In a “letter to the nation” before today’s summit, May said she would be “campaigning with my heart and soul to win that vote and to deliver this Brexit deal, for the good of our United Kingdom and all of our people.”
She said Britain’s departure from the EU “must mark the point when we put aside the labels of ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ for good and we come together again as one people.”
“To do that we need to get on with Brexit now by getting behind this deal.”