BRUSSELS, November 24
An 11th-hour deal on Saturday to answer Spanish demands for a big say on Gibraltar after Britain leaves the EU has salvaged an EU summit which will now go ahead as planned on Sunday to deliver a Brexit accord.
With British Prime Minister Theresa May due to meet EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker and summit chair Donald Tusk soon, Tusk secured a deal with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who had been threatening to scupper the consensus by staying away on Sunday.
“After the phone call between (Tusk) and (Sanchez) a few minutes ago, we are closer to tomorrow’s (European Council),” Tusk’s spokesman Preben Aamann said on Twitter.
The British government released a letter from the British ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow to the head of Tusk’s secretariat spelling out that Britain would make no presumption that any future EU-UK trade pact would apply to Gibraltar.
Sanchez was due to make a statement in Madrid to outline the agreement after British and Spanish negotiators talked through the night with EU officials trying to broker a deal that would reassure Madrid on how the Brexit treaties would apply to Gibraltar and give it a clear say on their application without reopening the texts.
Those assurances should form part of a brief statement agreed by the 27 EU leaders and added to the minutes of Sunday’s hour-long meeting before the 27 meet May.
“Negotiations went on through the night with Spain and Britain,” one diplomatic source said. “In a telephone conversation just now, Tusk and Sanchez reached an agreement on Gibraltar. The summit will go ahead.” The biggest obstacle to the Brexit accord overall is the vehement opposition in the British parliament. — Reuters
‘The Rock’ out from EU-UK trade pact
- At the summit on Sunday morning, the 27 EU leaders will be asked to approve a declaration specifically excluding Gibraltar from future EU-UK treaties-while leaving open the possibility that London could negotiate with Madrid on deals for Gibraltar
- Saturday’s agreements may comfort Spain’s hopes that the EU will, once Britain is no longer a member, swing behind its 300-year-old claim to recover sovereignty over “The Rock”, home to a historically strategic British naval base and 30,000 people
- The tiny territory of Gibraltar — ceded to Britain in 1713 but still claimed by Spain — was the only dispute left hanging ahead of the summit and had turned into a stumbling block
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