Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, assured yesterday that the agreement on the future of Gibraltar is “getting closer” but specified that nothing definitive will be reached during the meeting he will hold today in Brussels with his British colleague, David Cameron, and with the executive vice-president of the European Commission for Interinstitutional Relations, Maros Sefcovic.
In recent weeks there have been “important approaches to our positions with the United Kingdom in meetings at a technical level” and the situation “is already sufficiently mature” for the meeting with Cameron and Sefcovic to take place, Albares declared during an interview with Onda. Cero.
The vice president of the Commission has summoned Albares and the Secretary of the Foreign Office to the community capital today in what appears to be an attempt to definitively resolve the differences that still persist over the future of Gibraltar after Brexit, after eighteen rounds. formal negotiations between Brussels and London from October 2021. The Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, will be present at the meeting.
“I believe that we are already very close to the agreement and what all parties see is that there is a very positive dynamic,” Albares assured journalist Carlos Alsina on the program Más de uno. “Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” the minister continued (repeating his usual phrase to discuss this matter), but “we are getting closer to everything being agreed” and the Government hopes that the agreement will occur “as soon as possible.” possible,” he added, without further details. In any case, he clarified, “perhaps 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.”
Likewise, he specified, the agreement with the United Kingdom is in line with the physical elimination of the Fence because what is sought is “freedom of movement.” “That is part of the agreement, there are 270,000 Spaniards living in Campo de Gibraltar and we want to make life easier for those Spaniards,” he added.
Albares also warned that the Brussels meeting is between three parties (Spain, the United Kingdom and the EU, through Sefcovic) and that, therefore, Picardo’s presence is solely due to the fact that he is part of the British delegation, as it has already happened on previous occasions.
Picardo was the one who, precisely, announced this Thursday the date of the meeting, which will be, in his words, “the highest-level multilateral negotiation that he has ever attended” since negotiations began for the agreement that will regulate the relationship between the Rock and the EU as a consequence of the United Kingdom leaving the community club. Picardo will be accompanied in Brussels by the Deputy Chief Minister, Joseph García, the Attorney General, Michael Llamas, and the Principal Secretary, Glendon Martínez, a large delegation that shows that Gibraltarians hope that the meeting will allow the negotiations to be unblocked.
Diplomatic sources confirmed yesterday to The Diplomat that this Friday there will be a “political level” meeting in Brussels between Albares Cameron and Sefcovic. Likewise, they stated that “in recent weeks there have been important rapprochements on the pending issues within a negotiation that is very complex” and they assured that, in these conversations, it has been “observable a constructive attitude on the part of all parties and a willingness to reach an agreement”.
Sefcovic, who is the commissioner in charge of the EU negotiations with the United Kingdom Government on the issue of Gibraltar, had already announced on Thursday, at a press conference, that a “political” meeting was going to be held in the next few years. days to take stock, since talks at a technical level are “in full swing.” 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.”
Despite the expectations regarding this Friday’s meeting, a spokesperson for the British Government warned Europa Press that the agreement “is not imminent” and that the objective of the meeting is to provide “a platform to advance even further” towards achieving a agreement.
