Spain to back Brexit deal
May faces hard sell back home with Parliament, nation
BRUSSELS — The European Union removed the last major obstacle to sealing an agreement on Brexit after Spain said it had reached a deal Saturday with Britain over Gibraltar on the eve of an EU summit.
British Prime Minister Theresa May, who held preparatory talks with EU leaders Saturday evening, will then have the momentous task of selling the deal to a recalcitrant British Parliament and a nation still split over whether the U.K. should leave the EU on March 29 and under what conditions.
May vowed to campaign “with my heart and soul” to win Parliament’s backing for the deal.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who had threatened to oppose the deal, announced Saturday that Madrid would support the Brexit divorce deal after the U.K., and the EU agreed to give Spain a say in the future of the disputed British territory of Gibraltar, which lies at the southern tip of the Mediterranean nation.
Spain wants the future of the tiny territory, which was ceded to Britain in 1713 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 Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk assured Sanchez that Spain’s “prior agreement” would be needed on matters concerning Gibraltar.
May said Britain had conceded nothing on the sovereignty of Gibraltar.
“I will always stand by Gibraltar,” May said after meeting with Juncker. “The U.K. position on the sovereignty of Gibraltar has not changed and will not change.”
The move should allow EU leaders to sign off on the Brexit agreement between Britain and a special summit Sunday.
Sanchez said the agreement reached would give Spain “absolute guarantees to resolve the conflict that has lasted for more than 300 years before Spain and the U.K.”
May was on her way to Brussels when the deal came through and hopes to leave EU headquarters on Sunday with a firm agreement on the withdrawal terms for Britain’s departure from the EU on March 29, as well as a comprehensive negotiating text on how future relations should look like once both sides agree on a trade agreement.
Back home however, May is under some intense pressure from pro-Brexit and pro-EU British lawmakers, with large numbers on both sides of the debate opposing the divorce deal and threatening to vote it down when it comes 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 her planned Brexit deal, arguing 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 that the draft agreement raises constitutional questions and instead 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 DUP has said it may drop its backing of the government because of the Brexit plan.