Spain on Tuesday again signalled before the United Nations its willingness to reach a UK/EU treaty on Gibraltar’s post-Brexit relations with the bloc, adding it sees “enormous potential for prosperity” on both sides of the border.
The message was delivered to the UN Fourth Committee in New York by Agustín Santos Maraver, Spain’s permanent representative at the UN.
But as he does every year, Mr Santos also underscored Spain’s traditional stance on sovereignty and territorial integrity, insisting that any agreement on Gibraltar would not impact on that position.
The Spanish intervention drew a response from the UK Government, which said it enjoyed “a modern and mature relationship” with Gibraltar and reaffirmed its commitment to self-determination for the people of Gibraltar.
Addressing delegates at the session, Mr Santos echoed the words of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in an address to the UN General Assembly last month, during which he repeated before the international community his government’s wish to develop “an area of social and economic prosperity” covering Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar.
“Spain is favourable to the prosperity of both the inhabitants of the Campo de Gibraltar and those of the Rock,” Mr Santos told the Fourth Committee on Tuesday.
“We believe there is enormous potential for prosperity on both sides of the [border] fence.”
“We have demonstrated that in the negotiations on Brexit, which the majority of the population of the Rock of Gibraltar voted against in the referendum.”
Mr Santos said the UK and Spain had negotiated a tax agreement and four memorandums on citizen rights, tobacco, police and customs cooperation and the environment as part of a negotiating process that sought a Brexit “as orderly as possible”.
And he told the UN too that the political framework agreement reached on New Years’ Eve in 2020 “should serve as the foundation” for a future UK/EY agreement on Gibraltar’s post-Brexit relations with the bloc.
“The objective of this understanding is the creation of a zone of shared prosperity, as the prime minister of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, signalled before the General Assembly a few weeks ago,” Mr Santos added.
“That understanding must not permit, through action or measures in its application, any modification of Spain’s legal position in respect of sovereignty and jurisdiction in relation to Gibraltar.”
Mr Santos said Spain had always been willing to negotiate with the UK in line with UN resolutions on territorial integrity, which he described as “the only available solution” to Gibraltar’s decolonisation.
“I want to reiterate, as in previous years, our willingness to reach an agreement with the UK to put in place a new framework of regional cooperation for the benefit of inhabitants on both sides of the fence that divides Gibraltar [from Spain],” he added.
Mr Santos outlined Spain’s traditional position on Gibraltar, referring to the Treaty of Utrecht and arguing that Gibraltar had no territorial waters or airspace.
He referred too to UN resolutions calling on the UK and Spain to agree the decolonisation of Gibraltar in accordance with the principle of territorial integrity, resolutions that the UK was “ignoring”.
But he introduced too a new observation that highlighted a key issue for Spain in its relations with Gibraltar, namely the British military presence here.
“As is known, the nucleus of the colonial situation in Gibraltar is the British military presence on the Rock, which again goes against the doctrine of the United Nations’ General Assembly,” he said.
At the end of the Fourth Committee session, the UK Government exercised its right of reply and welcomed earlier submissions by the Gibraltar Government and the Self Determination for Gibraltar Group.
“The United Kingdom's position is clear regarding its sovereignty over Gibraltar and the territorial waters surrounding it,” a UK diplomat to the session in New York.
“The United Kingdom also recalls that the people of Gibraltar enjoy the right of self-determination.”
“The 2006 Gibraltar Constitution, which was endorsed in a referendum by the people of Gibraltar, provides for a modern and mature relationship between Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.”
“The Government of the United Kingdom restates its longstanding commitment to the people of Gibraltar that it will not enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes.”
The UK intervention prompted another reply from a Spanish diplomat, who again told the UN that Gibraltar had been captured by military force and that its “original inhabitants” had been expelled and replaced with “settlers”.
He repeated too Spain’s position that Gibraltar has no territorial waters or airspace, and its view that Gibraltarians did not have the right to self-determination.
“In line with UN doctrine, Spain rejects the attempts by the administering power and the authorities of the colonised territory to alter their political relationship to pretend there are no colonial ties, while at the same time claiming a hypothetical right to self-determination,” he said.
“It is Spain that suffers colonisation on its territory, which is why Spain has the right for that same territory to be decolonised though the restoration of its national unity and territorial integrity.”
