The Diplomat in Spain

The Diplomat

The PP spokesperson in the Senate, Pilar Rojo, yesterday regretted the “obscurantism” of the Government in relation to the negotiations on the future of Gibraltar, whose sovereignty has been sold “for a plate of lentils”, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares responded that the 300,000 Spaniards of Campo de Gibraltar “are not a plate of lentils” and that the arguments of the main opposition party regarding the Rock are “as old as Methuselah.”

Albares appeared yesterday before the Senate Foreign Commission, chaired by the mayor of Algeciras, José Ignacio Landaluce, to discuss the status of the negotiation between the European Commission and the United Kingdom on Gibraltar after Brexit. The session with Albares took place after several members of the Popular Party, including Landaluce himself and the MEP and former Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo, criticized the lack of transparency with which the negotiations are being carried out.

During the appearance, Albares explained the Government’s priorities in this term in foreign policy and addressed, among other issues, the situation in the Middle East, Western Sahara or the proposal from Spain and the European Union to the United Kingdom to convert the Campo de Gibraltar (Cádiz) in a “zone of shared prosperity”, as well as the status of ongoing negotiations.

During her speech, Pilar Rojo denounced the “international ridicule” and “obscurantism” that surround the negotiations on the future treaty that should regulate the relations of the British colony with the EU and expressed her party’s fear that the Government will go to give in to the pretensions of the United Kingdom and the feeling that “Spain is selling the sovereignty of Gibraltar for a plate of lentils.”

“Why are they in a hurry now to reach a bad agreement? “Does it need to be sold as a success what seems, sincerely, to be a bad agreement?” asked the PP senator, who warned the minister that “a no agreement is preferable to a bad agreement.” Likewise, she insisted once again on asking the minister to provide PP with the negotiations document and even make it public.

In his response, Albares accused the PP of “hypocrisy” and recalled that the negotiations that concluded with the 2020 New Year’s Eve Agreement between Spain and the United Kingdom, which lay the foundations for the negotiation in London and Brussels, began precisely with the Government of the PP, and, therefore, the party knows the lines of the current negotiation.

Likewise, he was particularly harsh with Pilar Rojo’s main accusations: “Do not insult our neighbors and our friends, do not say that 300,000 Spaniards from Campo de Gibraltar are a plate of lentils,” he said. “The lives of 300,000 Spaniards must continue the same, do not come with old arguments from the time of Methuselah, which have neither head nor tail,” he added.