MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gibraltar, UK, Spain ministerial tripartite meeting next Tuesday

Main players of the meeting: Moratinos, Miliband and Caruana

United Kingdom, Spain and Gibraltar announced Friday in an official release that “following resolution of all relevant matters”, have agreed to meet in Gibraltar next Tuesday to continue talks on the Trilateral Forum of Dialogue on Gibraltar.

“The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation of the Kingdom of Spain, Sr. D. Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Mr David Miliband, and the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Mr Peter Caruana, are pleased to announce that, following resolution of all relevant matters, they have agreed to meet in Gibraltar on Tuesday 21 July 2009 to hold the third Ministerial Meeting of the Trilateral Forum of Dialogue on Gibraltar”, said the official release.

According to the Gibraltar press Chief Minister Peter Caruana and Spanish Foreign Ministry officials were involved in subtle, intense but remote telephone and email negotiations late into Thursday in a bid to see if they could agree a formula of words that would allow going ahead with the tripartite ministerial talks.

Underlying all the preparations is how to neutralize the row over territorial waters between Spain and Gibraltar which was triggered a few weeks ago.

Caruana has been under increasing pressure from local political parties that are pressing for a full reversal, of Spain's designation of Gibraltar waters as an EU habitat under their control, as a pre-condition to talks.

Britain is still considering its position as regards joining Gibraltar's action at the European Court of Justice against the European Commission's acceptance of Spain's designation. On things involving Gibraltar the Commission has always 'passed the buck' to the courts rather than get embroiled in a political row with Member States.

UK is almost certain to join the action but appears to have been stalling for time in the hope of some diplomatic settlement.

Madrid’s El Pais pushed the argument that Gibraltar is the stumbling block and quoted Mr Caruana's remarks to the Gibraltar Chronicle, on the need for London to join the court action, as evidence.

It said that this position reflected Mr Caruana's 'nervousness' given London's delay in declaring a position and cited diplomatic sources as saying it would be difficult for a case to succeed if UK, the sovereign power, did not join in with Gibraltar defending its own waters or see the designation as the “usurpation” as described by No6.

It also had Guardia Civil sources denying that they were carrying out checks and that they were being especially cautious about this on the eve of talks.