The European Commission gave on Wednesday the go ahead for Spain to overhaul its stricken nationalized banks and opened the door for nearly 40 billion Euros in Euro zone aid to be disbursed, offering hope for an end to Spain's banking crisis.
Spain's government rejected an offer of talks from armed Basque separatists ETA and demanded the group dissolve itself without conditions, after ETA called for negotiations on prisoners and a weapons handover.
Separatists in Spain's Catalonia won regional elections on Sunday but failed to get a resounding mandate for a referendum on independence, which had threatened to pile political uncertainty on top of Spain's economic woes.
Spain’s decision to pull out of the trilateral process was formally recorded in the consensus decision on Gibraltar adopted by the United Nations General Assembly this year.
UK has dismissed a comment by Spain’s Foreign Minister suggesting that Britain and Spain were poised to reach a bilateral solution to the fishing dispute. Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said Spain was open to dialogue and that he and his British counterpart, William Hague, “talk a lot” about many issues, including Gibraltar
Spain and Portugal sought help from their former Latin American colonies to rescue them from economic crisis through a new wave of trade and investment across the Atlantic Ocean.
There was a marked escalation in the dispute over Gibraltar’s territorial waters as Britain and Spain both hardened their diplomatic stance in the wake of recent incursions.
Spanish President Mariano Rajoy stated that he “would have liked” his Argentine counterpart, President Cristina Fernández to have attended the XXIIth Ibero-American summit, starting Friday in Cádiz.
The XXII Ibero-American summit which takes off Friday in the city of Cadiz will be focused on the Euro zone crisis and the need to boost investments in Latin America of which Spain can become the “vertebrate axis” said Spanish Foreign minister Jose García Margallo.
The Foreign Office summoned the Spanish ambassador in London and condemned Madrid’s ‘provocative incursions’ in Gibraltar waters saying that it “is in the interests of Spain, as well as Gibraltar and Britain, to avoid any incident that may damage the prospects of developing a harmonious and collaborative relationship between Gibraltar and Spain”.