Fundamental change in Spanish Govt policy on Gibraltar

Progress on sovereignty or no cooperation talks

 The new Spanish foreign minister, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, has told his UK opposite number, William Hague,  that the joke is over on Gibraltar,  as a reference to his recent cheeky aside to the Conservative MEP, Charles Tannock,  when he said  'Gibraltar español' as the MEP extended a hand of friendship.

  When  Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo  met foreign secretary William Hague in Brussels on Tuesday,  he said that there is now a fundamental change in Spain's approach to Gibraltar.

The change is that, unless there are advances on the sovereignty issue, there will not be progress on cooperation.
                                                            ............................................

 Margallo said that the Gibraltarians were intent on taking part in discussions, such as on sovereignty and jurisdiction, but these are matters for the 'big boys.'

He has made it plain that only Britain and Spain will talk about sovereignty and jurisdiction.

However, he considers it positive to talk about cooperation because it favours both sides of the 'fence', as he called the frontier.
At such talks - presumably the trilateral forum - the Junta de Andalucia should also be present. This was first mooted by the former Spanish foreign minister,  Miguel Angel Moratinos, but was rejected.

But even though he thinks it is useful to talk about cooperation, his line is that this will only be possible in tandem with advances on the sovereignty issue.


                                                             .............................................

"We will not talk permanently about cooperation if there are no advances in the fundamental issue of sovereignty," he said in a Spanish television interview two days ago.

This is the fundamental change in the new Spanish policy to Gibraltar, he stressed.

It is going back to the days prior to the socialist government in Spain.