The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and his new British colleague, the Labor Party David Lammy, will meet during the NATO summit that begins today in Washington, to try to reactivate the negotiation on the future of Gibraltar after Brexit.
Albares confirmed in statements to La Sexta that he has already had a telephone conversation with Lammy in which he congratulated him on his appointment to the Government formed by Keir Starmer, and agreed to hold a meeting “immediately” on the sidelines of the Atlantic Alliance meeting , in which both will participate this week.
The minister insisted that the Government’s willingness is to “resume these negotiations as soon as possible”, since a lot of progress was made with the previous British Executive and now the priority is to complete them so that they are beneficial for “those 300,000 Andalusians and Gibraltarians of Campo of Gibraltar”.
The last meeting on Gibraltar was held in Brussels on May 16 together with David Cameron and the vice president of the European Commission in charge of the issue, Maros Sefcovic, which was also attended by the chief minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo. So he stayed precisely “on advancing this technical work once the political framework is already more or less concrete.”
Yesterday, in Madrid, the United Kingdom ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliott, stated that an agreement on Gibraltar after Brexit is “inevitable”, especially given the challenges that both countries share, and stressed that an agreement on this matter “would benefit all parties” involved.
This was stated during a meeting organized by the British Embassy and the Association of Defense Journalists (APDEF), in which he emphasized that the Spanish and British authorities have duly shown their “commitment to moving forward” within the framework of the negotiations. Europa Press reports.
“These negotiations were advancing rapidly before the elections were called. The position of the new Government on Gibraltar responds to a State policy and not a party policy, so I do not anticipate any important variation in this regard. These negotiations will foreseeably be resumed and it is planned that they be resolved soon, very soon,” he ventured, although without detailing whether it will be before or after the summer.
