Airport of Gibraltar./ Foto: www.gibraltarairport.gi
The Diplomat. 14/07/2018
The British ambassador to Spain, Simon Manley, said yesterday that negotiations with the new Spanish Government on the future of Gibraltar have been resumed after Brexit and that, among the points under discussion, the possibility of an agreement on the airport of the Rock.
«We are talking every day with the Government of Gibraltar and the Government of Spain to ensure that the process goes well», Manley emphasized at a press conference after London published its White Paper on the Brexit negotiation process, in which it maintains its positions around the future of the British colony.
Manley recalled that there is not much time left for European summit in October, which will theoretically close the negotiations between the EU and the United Kingdom. In this regard, he stressed that London wants to «move forward as soon as possible» in the talks and, in the case of Gibraltar, «achieve prosperity and security» of the Rock and the Spanish region of Campo de Gibraltar.
The new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, said in his first parliamentary appearance that Spain does not consider this negotiation on Gibraltar «as a matter of recovery of sovereignty», but above all for the economic impact that Brexit may have on the areas surrounding.
«What really matters to us is to know in what way the Campo de Gibraltar, the society and the economy that surrounds the Rock, will be affected by the new rules of the game, and in that we will invest all our political capital and the strategically positive situation that gives us that any agreement in this regard necessarily have to pass through ours», he said in Parlament.
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Dastis pleaded in February for the joint management of the airport to integrate it into the Spanish system
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His predecessor, Alfonso Dastis, expressed in February his desire that London and Madrid reach an agreement that allows «the joint management of the airport» and recalled that Spain «maintains a claim» on the territorial part of the isthmus in which the airport, which does not appear in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713.
The former minister said in a parliamentary response that the Government’s «temporarily shared» sovereignty project includes the «full integration of Gibraltar airport into the Spanish airport system» and its joint use «in a very beneficial framework for the entire region».
