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Post by fretslider on Apr 1, 2017 4:20:33 GMT -5
After lobbying from Spanish diplomats, the EU’s opening negotiating position for the Brexit talks presents the British government with the choice of reaching agreement with the Spaniards about Gibraltar’s future or exposing its citizens to economic peril by pushing “the rock” outside any EU-UK trade deal. “The union will stick up for its members and that means Spain now,” a senior EU official said.
The surprise clause gives Spain the ability to exclude Gibraltar from any UK-EU transitional single market access arrangement or future trade deal if it is not satisfied with the status of the territory.
It says that once the UK leaves the bloc “no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom”.
This suggests that unless Britain is willing to let its citizens on “the rock” be subject to an inferior economic future than those in the UK, the EU has in effect handed the Spanish government a veto on Britain’s entire future relationship with the bloc.
www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/31/future-of-gibraltar-at-stake-in-brexit-negotiations
They're a rum lot, the Spanish...
