Spain’s Foreign Minister, Alfonso Dastis, said that he believed Gibraltar should be Spanish, though he added Spain must be intelligent in its approach to the Rock. He was speaking during a wide-ranging interview on the morning politics show Los Desayunos, on state broadcaster TVE1.
Britain will maintain Gibraltar’s existing access to the UK financial services market and broaden it where possible, a British Government minister told the House of Lords on Thursday, as he insisted sovereignty was “simply not on the table” in the Brexit process.
Spain is seeking “the consensus of everyone” in order to further its sovereignty aspirations over Gibraltar, the country’s Minister for Foreign Affairs said in an interview at the weekend.Alfonso Dastis Quecedo told La Vanguardia newspaper that “there is no doubt” as to Spain’s position in respect of the Rock. “We want that piece of Spain to be reintegrated into Spain,” he said.
Spain will not put Gibraltar at the centre of Brexit negotiations, the country’s Foreign Minister, Alfonso Dastis Quecedo, said in an interview with the Financial Times. Dastis Quecedo told the newspaper that the EU should start trade talks with Britain relatively soon and had no plan to impose a “punitive” Brexit deal that would weaken London as a financial centre.
Spain will oppose any special treatment for Gibraltar or Scotland as part of the Brexit process, the ruling Partido Popular spokesman in the European Parliament said this week. During a speech in Strasbourg, Esteban Gonzalez Pons said only the UK could negotiate its withdrawal and that any deal would “affect the entirety” of the country.
Spain has little prospect of gaining joint sovereignty over Gibraltar, Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said this weekend as he acknowledged that Gibraltarians “have a right” to reject the offer. In an interview with the leading Spanish newspaper El País, the foreign minister insisted any post-Brexit relationship between Gibraltar and the EU must first be agreed by the UK and Spain.
Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has dropped José Manuel García-Margallo from his cabinet, replacing him as Foreign Minister with a career diplomat from Jerez de la Frontera. Although there had been wide speculation that García-Margallo would not continue in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the appointment of 61-year old Alfonso María Dastis Quecedo took most pundits by surprise.