New high-level meeting to try to close the agreement on Gibraltar. The Foreign Ministers of Spain and the United Kingdom, José Manuel Albares and David Cameron, respectively, will meet again in Brussels with the Vice President of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič, to outline the details of the new relationship with the Rock after Brexit , as reported by diplomatic sources.
The meeting takes place a month after the last meeting in which they noted “significant progress” in the negotiation and managed to close “general political lines” on the new status of Gibraltar. The intention of all parties is to complete the understanding before the European elections so that the issues of Brexit are closed with the current community executive, which is the one that negotiated the entire package after the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the EU.
The British colony, whose sovereignty Spain has claimed since 1713, was left out of the agreements on the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union (EU), which became effective on December 31, 2020, and it was up to the governments to reach an understanding on relations in the new stage with the aim of eliminating controls on people and goods at the physical border, where mobility is constant, and at the same time ensuring the security of the market and the EU zone of free movement of people .
The main stalemates during these years of negotiations have had to do with the Peñón airport, for which Spain demanded a joint use agreement as well as the role of Frontex agents and the Spanish Security Forces and Corps at that airport border. for travelers from third countries, and equal treatment of cross-border workers in retirement, extending the benefits of British Community Care (which amount to about 465 euros more) to this group. Also the issues related to the fence, which in practice represents an external border of the EU.
This Thursday is the second meeting in this format that has occurred in the entire time that the parties have been negotiating, which points to the closeness of the agreement.
Source: www.eldiario.es
