Eduardo González
The first tripartite meeting between the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, his British colleague, David Cameron, and the executive vice-president of the European Commission for Interinstitutional Relations, Maros Sefcovic, to address the future of Gibraltar concluded today in Brussels with “significant progress” on “the airport, goods and mobility” and with the commitment to resume negotiations in “the coming weeks to conclude the EU-United Kingdom Agreement.”
Maros Sefcovic, the commissioner in charge of the EU negotiations with the United Kingdom Government on the issue of Gibraltar, had summoned Albares and the Secretary of the Foreign Office in the community capital today in an attempt to advance the pending issues of the negotiation on the future of Gibraltar after Brexit, after eighteen formal rounds of talks between Brussels and London, which began in October 2021. The Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, was present at the meeting as a member of the British delegation.
At the end of the meeting, the three parties issued a joint statement in which they limited themselves to announcing that the negotiations, in “the first meeting in this format,” were held “in a constructive atmosphere, with significant progress achieved.” “General political lines have been agreed, including on the airport, goods and mobility,” the text continues. “Negotiations will continue over the coming weeks to conclude the EU-UK Agreement,” it adds.
According to the statement, the participants have agreed “this was a productive day.” “The meeting reaffirmed the shared commitment to conclude an EU-UK Agreement to secure a future prosperity for the whole region,” say the three parties. “This Agreement will bring confidence, legal certainty and stability to the lives and livelihoods of the people of the whole region, without prejudice to the parties’ legal positions,” it concludes.
For his part, Picardo met with Cameron before the meeting with Sefčovic and Albares. “Gibraltar has worked closely with the British Foreign Office throughout the negotiation process,” said the Government of the Rock in a brief press release.
Albares: “It is not just another day, important progress has been made”
After the meeting, Albares told journalists that today “is not just another day, it is not just another day of negotiation. It is a very important day, where important progress has been made and in which we all agree to continue working in the coming weeks to conclude.”
According to the minister, there are still “a few weeks of work” left to conclude the agreement, but he insisted that this Friday “general political lines” have been agreed on “the airport, in goods and mobility.” “We have agreed not to go into details or give more details about what those agreed political lines are,” warned the minister, who also specified that the parties had agreed that, “in the coming weeks, all the texts that we present, that we exchange, will be at all times joint texts.”
According to Albares, the European Commission and Spain are “perfectly aligned” in the negotiation over the Rock. In any case, he assured, the parties have not set a specific date to close the agreement, although he acknowledged that, if it were up to him, it would be closed “tomorrow.”
For his part, the counselor of the Presidency, Interior, Social Dialogue and Administrative Simplification of the Junta de Andalucía, Antonio Sanz, expressed the “surprise” of the autonomous Executive for “not being informed in any case, in any way, by of the Government of Spain” on the Gibraltar negotiations, “something that has never happened.”
Albares had announced yesterday that the agreement on the future of Gibraltar is “getting closer” but specified that nothing definitive would be reached during today’s meeting in Brussels. “Maybe tomorrow (today) will not be the final day, because they are complex issues,” but “we are already beginning to get close to being able to have an agreement on the general lines.” Albares and Sefcovic assured on April 4, in a joint statement, that the negotiations between the EU and the United Kingdom on Gibraltar “are progressing as planned” and are entering “a sensitive stage.”
