The Diplomat
Spain and the United Kingdom will hold technical meetings in Madrid on 14 and 15 January to negotiate the situation of Gibraltar after the consumption of the Brexit.
A communiqué issued yesterday by the Gibraltarian Government announces the holding of these meetings, which aim to carry out the necessary preparatory work for the exit from the EU. The representatives of the British colony will be part of the United Kingdom delegation and the Spanish delegation will include representatives of the Andalusian Government and regional and local entities.
The negotiation is a consequence of the four memorandums signed in November last year by the then Foreign Ministers of both countries (Josep Borrell on the Spanish side and David Lidington on the British side) and which are annexed to the Agreement on the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.
According to the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs when signing these memorandums, they guarantee an orderly exit from Gibraltar from the EU, including the transitional period, as well as the rights of citizens and workers in the area.
It is expected that at the January meetings the timetable and content of the successive meetings will be established, which will be held by three committees to deal with the most controversial issues in the areas covered by the four memoranda: citizens’ rights, police and customs cooperation, tobacco and the environment.
As reported yesterday by the newspaper El País, the three committees will be as follows: citizenship (there are almost 10,000 Spaniards working on the Rock); police and customs cooperation, including the intended approximation of the price of tobacco to discourage smuggling from the Rock; and the environment. In this area, the newspaper says, at least some of the land that Gibraltar has gained from the sea is to be reclaimed by placing cement and other materials (so-called filler) in waters whose sovereignty is disputed by Madrid and London. Spain has harshly criticised this behaviour, which involves dumping pollutants into the sea in order to expand the Rock.
There will be a fourth committee, in this case chaired by the European Commission, which will address the issue of all EU citizens (there are some 15,000 working on the Rock, including Spanish citizens).