
According to reports in the Spanish press, the case against Vidal Armadores, the beneficial owners of a fleet of vessels operating at various times fishing for toothfish in the Southern Ocean collapsed on a point of law.

Spain has agreed to extradite to Colombia a former FARC rebel accused of carrying out 300 forced abortions on women fighters, some of them underage. Hector Arboleda Albeidis Buitrago, who has Spanish nationality, was detained in Madrid in December 2015.

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.

Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez is off to Europe for a two-week business and academic interests trip which begins on Friday in Spain and will continue in the Vatican, Austria and France. On Friday, Vazquez is scheduled to hold a private meeting with King Felipe IV of Spain, and on Monday with president Mariano Rajoy.

The UN General Assembly’s Fourth Committee adopted this week a consensus decision setting out the conflicting positions of the British and Spanish governments on Gibraltar, and including – for the first time – Britain’s double-lock commitment on sovereignty. The decision was agreed by Britain and Spain despite the starkly contrasting views set out at the last session of the Fourth Committee in October, as reported by the Gibraltar Chronicle.

Gibraltar “is part of the UK” and its particular circumstances will be reflected in Britain’s exit deal from the EU, the UK’s ambassador to Spain said this week, adding that co-sovereignty was not an option. Simon Manley made the comments in a wide-ranging interview on Brexit published by La Nueva España newspaper on Wednesday.

José Manuel García-Margallo urged his successor to pursue the “opportunities” that Brexit offered Spain in its sovereignty aspirations over Gibraltar. In a farewell speech as he handed over to Alfonso Dastis Quecedo, Spain’s new Minister for Foreign Affairs, García-Margallo listed what he believed were his main achievements in office and included his strategy on the Rock.

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.