Spain ditches plot to claim Gibraltar in Brexit talks
SPAIN has ditched plans to make a ‘land-grab’ for Gibraltar during Brexit talks, its foreign minister confirmed.
In a surprise move, Alfonso Dastis revealed that Madrid does not want to ‘jeopardise’ negotiations by raising the centuries-old dispute over The Rock.
In a significant climbdown, Mr Dastis said Spain was not interested in blocking a deal to boost its own chances of reclaiming the territory.
‘I won’t make an agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom conditional on recovering sovereignty over Gibraltar,’ he said.
However, the senior Spanish politician said Spain would continue to seek joint sovereignty over Gibraltar, despite residents overwhelmingly rejecting that idea in a referendum.
‘We will try to convince the Gibraltarians that this is a route worth exploring and that it would benefit them too,’ he added.
While an initial Brexit deal can be passed by a qualified majority of EU countries, insiders feared Spain would use concerns about the territory as grounds to effectively veto a final agreement.
Its interest has already been recognised in EU negotiating guidelines, which say postBrexit deals with the EU will not apply to Gibraltar without ‘agreement between Spain and the UK’. The inclusion of this clause followed intense lobbying from officials in Madrid, despite politicians and the public in Gibraltar repeatedly stating they have no wish to join Spain.
This prompted Theresa May to say she would ‘never’ allow Gibraltar to slip from British control against the wishes of Gibraltarians.
The King of Spain last month further exacerbated tensions by appearing to dismiss Gibraltar’s right to self-determination by calling for London and Madrid to reach a new agreement on its future.
Gibraltar’s chief minister Fabian Picardo responded by telling King Felipe that ‘territories cannot be traded from one monarch to another like pawns in a chess game’.
He insisted Gibraltar, which became a British colony in 1830, would ‘remain 100 per cent British’.
A Foreign Office spokesman said the Government is committed to ‘fully involving’ Gibraltar in Brexit talks. ‘The UK stands by its assurances to Gibraltar never to enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their democratically expressed wishes,’ he said.
In April, Spain was accused of provocation after sending an armed patrol boat to within a mile of the Rock. The incursion was described as unlawful by the Foreign Office.
Osborne gloom – Page 16