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Tuesday, 6 May 2025, 15:46
Spain's minister of foreign affairs, European Union and cooperation, José Manuel Albares , said on Monday that in recent months there have been "substantial advances" in the framework of the negotiation of the agreement that will regulate Gibraltar's relationship with the EU after Brexit. Meanwhile the conservative PP opposition has asked him for more details, particularly about the stumbling blocks that are preventing the treaty from being finalised.
The questions came during Albares' appearance before the Senate foreign affairs committee to present the new foreign action strategy, after having done the same before the congressional committee of the same name just hours earlier.
"There has been substantial progress in recent months, progress that extends to all areas of negotiation, from the mobility of people to bring down the last frontier in Western Europe, the last wall, to the mobility of goods needed to create the area of shared prosperity that we aspire to," he said.
According to him, in the negotiations, which Brussels is carrying out on behalf of the EU-27, progress has also been made on "taxation, so that the future agreement is fair and balanced for all, and on the environment", two fundamental aspects for the Campo de Gibraltar.
"Spain wants the agreement," Albares pointed out once again, citing as proof of this his frequent contacts with both the Junta de Andalucía and the mayors of the Campo de Gibraltar and with economic and social representatives to inform them of the course of the negotiations, while making it clear that all of this is being done "without undermining the position of Spanish sovereignty" over the Rock.
Albares' remarks follow last week's meeting between Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, in charge of negotiations, and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy in London. The commissioner said at the time that "steady progress is being made" but that "further progress is needed to resolve the final issues".
A week earlier, the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen , and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, had met to discuss the UK's relations with the EU, without the issue of the Rock being among the topics discussed. The last political meeting at the highest level took place last September, with no date for a new one so far.
The PP spokesperson on the committee, Íñigo Fernández, took the opportunity to criticise the delay in finalising this agreement, given that the referendum on Brexit was held on 23 June 2016, and the exit from the EU was completed on 30 January 2020.
Fernández was ironic about the progress that the minister has reported. "It would be good if in five years, in nine years, there were no progress, but there are no results," Fernández stressed, who asked the minister to be more specific about the state of the negotiations.
"Are you going to tell us what the stumbling blocks are that are preventing this agreement from being concluded for the moment? Are you going to tell us what Spain is proposing, what the Gibraltar authorities are proposing, what the United Kingdom is proposing? Where are the stumbling blocks? Are you going to tell us what the objectives of these negotiations are?" asked the Partido Popular senator, criticising the fact that the representatives of the Campo de Gibraltar are not present at the negotiations, as the chief minister of the Rock, Fabian Picardo, is, together with the British delegation.
"Why this contempt for the inhabitants of the whole of the Campo de Gibraltar area?" he asked, stressing that in the current situation the minister is "condemning them to compete on unequal terms" with those who live on the Rock.
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