The Diplomat
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares announced this Monday before the Senate that “substantial progress” has been made in recent months in the negotiations on Gibraltar’s future relationship with the EU after Brexit. However, he dodged a question from the People’s Party (PP) about the “obstacles” that have prevented an agreement to date.
“There has been substantial progress in recent months, progress that extends to all areas of negotiation, from the mobility of people so that the last fence of Western Europe, the last wall, can fall, to the mobility of goods necessary to create the zone of shared prosperity we aspire to,” Albares stated during an appearance before the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee to explain the new Foreign Action Strategy, according to the Europa Press news agency.
He also stated that there has also been progress in “taxation, so that the future agreement is fair and balanced for all, and in the environment.”
After this intervention, the PP spokesperson on the committee, Íñigo Fernández, asked the minister what problems have prevented, to date, “any results.”
“Are you going to tell us what the obstacles are that are currently or for the time being preventing the closing of this agreement? Are you going to tell us what Spain is proposing, what the Gibraltar authorities are proposing, what the United Kingdom is proposing? Where are the obstacles? Are you going to tell us what the objectives of this negotiation are?” asked the PP senator. The minister did not respond to these questions.