Albares travels to London today to resume negotiations on Gibraltar with Lammy

Eduardo González The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, travels today to the United Kingdom to resume negotiations with his British counterpart, David Lammy, on the future placement of Gibraltar in the European Union, according to sources from the Ministry informed The Diplomat. This is the first working meeting between the two ministers, although they had already met last July in Washington, on the sidelines of the NATO Summit, shortly after the victory of the Labour Party in the legislative elections and only 48 hours after Lammy took office. At that meeting, both ministers discussed the negotiations and agreed on the need to “move quickly for the benefit and interest of all”. A week later, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, took advantage of his participation in the fourth summit of the European Political Community (EPC), held in Woodstock (Oxfordshire), to hold his first bilateral meeting with the newly appointed Keir Starmer. During this meeting, according to Moncloa in a press release, Sánchez conveyed to Starmer the need to create a bilateral and structured framework for dialogue and showed him his “constructive attitude” in order to reach an agreement on Gibraltar. For its part, the British Government reported that, during the meeting, the Prime Minister expressed his hope that “the change of approach will pave the way for an agreement on Gibraltar that works for all parties.” The European Commission (with direct participation of Spain) and the Government of the United Kingdom have been negotiating for more than two years the agreement for the future relationship of Gibraltar with the EU after Brexit, based on the so-called New Year's Eve Agreement reached by the Spanish and British governments on December 31, 2020. The last meeting on Gibraltar was held in Brussels on May 16 with the participation of Albares, Lammy's predecessor, the conservative David Cameron, and the vice president of the European Commission in charge of the issue, Maros Sefcovic, as well as the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo. That was the second meeting within this tripartite format, after the one held on April 12 and which concluded with a joint declaration in which the three parties merely announced that the negotiations had been “held in a constructive atmosphere” and “significant progress” had been made. According to Albares, at the May meeting “significant progress” was made based on “the political lines already agreed on April 12, which referred to mobility, goods and the airport,” but he warned that, although the prospect was that there would be “an agreement,” there was still “no possible time frame.” In fact, the process came to a standstill after the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the conservative Rishi Sunak, announced on May 22 the end of the legislature and the advancement of the elections to July 4. A few days before the British elections, David Lammy, still the Labour Party's Foreign Affairs spokesman, assured that if he took up the post of Foreign Minister he would address the agreement on the future of Gibraltar from the point where David Cameron had left off. On the same day of Lammy's appointment, Fabian Picardo expressed his confidence that after the Labour Party's victory in the United Kingdom the negotiations could be accelerated. Spain and the EU have presented a proposal for a "balanced" agreement and have assured that the next steps depend on London. In any case, the new British Government has already warned that, although its desire is to reach an agreement, it will not accept any compromise that goes against the wishes of the Gibraltarian authorities. Everyone agrees that the ultimate goal of the agreement must be the creation of a zone of shared prosperity between the Rock and the Campo de Gibraltar, which includes the removal of the Fence, but the British and Gibraltarians are not prepared to accept that Spain should take over access controls to the Schengen area, which should be moved to the port and airport of Gibraltar. Initially, the presence of agents from Frontex, the European border agency, is planned at these points. Other disagreements arise over the use of the airport and the military base in Gibraltar.

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