Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s Prime Minister, is expected to meet with his British counterpart David Cameron later this month. According to Spanish press reports the meeting is likely to take place in London on February 21.
Britain would only enter into sovereignty negotiations with Spain if Gibraltar was happy for it to do so, Europe Minister David Lidington told the House of Commons this week
Repeating his recent statement regarding the Falkland Islands and Argentina, British Prime Minister David Cameron said the UK backed Gibraltar’s right to self determination and that to go against the wishes of its people would amount to “re-colonisation”.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Garcia Margallo has sent a letter to his UK counterpart William Hague responding to Prime Minister David Cameron’s remarks on self-determination.
“This joke is over” Jose Garcia-Margallo, Spanish Foreign Minister told his British counterpart William Hague this week regarding the Gibraltar sovereignty dispute.
Spanish Foreign Affairs minister Jose Garcia-Margallo is seeking to revisit talks on co-operation with the disputed Gibraltar UK Overseas Territory on a new variation of the formulas for talks: a quadripartite forum.
British ministers feared the closure of Gibraltar’s naval dockyard would throw the local budget into “chronic deficit” and precipitate a “constitutional crisis” according to newly-released files, some of which were published by the Gibraltar Chronicle.
A senior director at a Conservative think-tank founded by Jose Maria Aznar, Spain’s former Popular Party prime minister, said Gibraltar was low on the list of priorities for Madrid, particularly at a time of crisis when it needed the UK as an ally.
Gibraltar could play a role in contingency plans drawn up by the Foreign Office to evacuate British expatriates in the event of a banking collapse in Spain and Portugal, according to the Sunday Times.
In a very close result the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party (GSLP) Liberal Alliance were elected on Thursday into government with Fabian Picardo topping the poll.