{"id":35,"date":"2018-11-23T11:00:43","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T11:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/?p=35"},"modified":"2018-11-28T10:00:40","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T10:00:40","slug":"between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-spain-gibraltar-and-the-uks-brexit-withdrawal-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/2018\/11\/23\/between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-spain-gibraltar-and-the-uks-brexit-withdrawal-agreement\/","title":{"rendered":"Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Spain, Gibraltar and the UK\u2019s Brexit Withdrawal Agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dr Paul Kennedy - Brexit, Spain and the Rock\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/303236955?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A former Spanish prime minister was in the habit of saying that, for Madrid and London, the issue of Gibraltar was not unlike having a stone in one\u2019s shoe: an irritant which just wouldn\u2019t go away. More a Rock than a stone, Gibraltar has certainly borne out Felipe Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s observation over recent days as both countries have struggled to remain diplomatic within the context of Theresa May struggling to save her draft withdrawal agreement. Spain\u2019s Europe Minister, Marco Aguiriano, accused the UK of operating deceitfully under cover of darkness, whilst David Lidington, effectively May\u2019s Number Two, curtly reminded his interlocutors on a recent visit to Madrid that the UK\u2019s position regarding Gibraltar\u2019s sovereignty was not up for discussion. Moreover, he suggested that Madrid should instead confine itself to solving specific issues, such as the question of Spaniards working in Gibraltar \u2013 around 8,000 cross over from Spain every day to work on the Rock, according to Gibraltar\u2019s government.<\/p>\n<p>The vibrancy of Gibraltar\u2019s economy certainly offers a clear contrast with the sluggishness largely in evidence on the Spanish side of the border. Although both Mariano Rajoy\u2019s former centre-right government and Pedro S\u00e1nchez\u2019s current centre left-administration undertook not to seek to make use of Theresa May\u2019s Brexit travails to exert pressure on the UK in negotiations over the Rock\u2019s future, Madrid has been forthright in defence of its interests. Spain has consistently reminded London that all twenty-seven remaining EU member states expressly agreed, shortly after Theresa May activated Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, that any deal struck between the EU and the UK would not apply to Gibraltar unless both London and Madrid provided their consent; the future of Gibraltar would have to be negotiated separately from any trade deal with the UK. Madrid\u2019s anger over recent days has centred on the failure of the UK government\u2019s draft agreement to acknowledge this reality, thereby further obfuscating the issue of Gibraltar. Pedro S\u00e1nchez therefore indicated that he would be prepared to withhold his support for Theresa May\u2019s withdrawal deal unless his concerns about consent on the issue of the Rock were addressed in a satisfactory manner.<\/p>\n<p>For its part, the UK has barely acknowledged Spain\u2019s suggestion since the Brexit referendum that joint sovereignty over Gibraltar would enable the Rock to continue to benefit from the frictionless trade which lies at the heart of the European Union. Pedro S\u00e1nchez\u2019s recent decision to maintain the issue of sovereignty on the agenda must also be viewed within the context of current domestic political events, most notably regional elections in Andalusia, which borders with Gibraltar, on 2<sup>nd<\/sup> December. Andalusia has been under the control of Sanchez\u2019s Socialist PSOE party for almost four decades, and S\u00e1nchez is under pressure to play the sovereignty card in response to the accusations of his centre-right Popular Party rival that his minority government is incapable of protecting Spain\u2019s interests.\u00a0 It remains to be seen whether, despite the issues outlined above, the UK is still capable of obtaining Spain\u2019s support for its draft withdrawal agreement at the Special meeting of the European Council on Sunday 25<sup>th<\/sup> November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former Spanish prime minister was in the habit of saying that, for Madrid and London, the issue of Gibraltar was not unlike having a stone in one\u2019s shoe: an irritant which just wouldn\u2019t go away. More a Rock than...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":566,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,16,6,2],"tags":[9,17,18],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-gibraltar","category-theresa-may","category-trade","tag-brexit","tag-gibraltar","tag-withdrawal-agreement"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd4Pxu-z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/brexit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}