Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will become the first ever serving Spanish minister to visit British Gibraltar on Tuesday next week when he joins David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary and the host Peter Caruana, Chief Minister, for talks and lunch.

David Miliband

 Peter Caruana

Miguel Angel Moratinos

There was no hint with the words “resolution of all relevant matters” in their statement, just how the complex issue of the territorial waters and Spain’s EU designation of a Gibraltar sea habitat as Spanish, had been overcome.

In an unprecedented week of negotiations developing in a crescendo that paralleled an extended version of Ravel’s ‘Bolero’, the process culminated last night minutes before 8pm. Journalists in Gibraltar and Spain reached frenzy point as deadlines approached and No6 appeared to go into meltdown with phones cut off or unanswered.

Mr Caruana had himself earlier characterised the possibility of talks as ‘51/49 …yes’.

The statement issued by each side simultaneously simply reads:

“The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation of the Kingdom of Spain, Sr D Miguel Angel Moratinos, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Mr David Miliband and the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Mr Peter Caruana, are pleased to announce that, following resolution of all relevant matters, they have agreed to meet in Gibraltar on Tuesday 21st July 2009 to hold the third Ministerial Meeting of the Trilateral Forum of Dialogue on Gibraltar.”

All week officials from each side, increasingly despairing that the event would be called off, nonetheless continued with detailed planning from security to menus.

Sr Moratinos will fly over from Milan on Tuesday morning but it is not established yet whether he will take advantage of the easy EU access to Gibraltar airport that was negotiated historically with the Cordoba agreements.

If journalists were humming for answers, it was the PP Opposition in Spain, under the baton of Jose Ignacio Landaluce that was, to the last moments, increasingly drumming out demands that Sr Moratinos call off his visit to Gibraltar.

The announcement last night significantly pulls the tripartite process from a precipice and is likely to be largely well received, especially by business leaders in Gibraltar and many in the Campo. But opposition politicians on both sides will be eager to scrutinise the language that has suddenly made a Spanish Foreign Minister comfortable with a visit to Gibraltar. Sr Moratinos, however, is no newcomer to pushing forward with his policies.

It was in 2004 as Gibraltar celebrated both the tercentenary and the then recent referendum defeat of the joint sovereignty defeat, that he used the anniversary day of the conquest to signal a new more citizen based approach to the historic dispute.

In an interview with GBC yesterday Mr Caruana made clear that he would stick to his red lines – essentially that Spain cannot gain from the contested demarcation of Gibraltar waters as a Spanish marine habit. That remains the subject of a legal challenge from Gibraltar and one which the UK is almost certain to find itself obliged to join.

Mr Caruana emphasised that any co-operation agreed relating to the waters can only take place on the basis of the ‘status quo ante’ – legal speak for the circumstances being as they were before Spain slipped its demarcation into the European Commission books.

Mr Caruana said it will be clear that if talks go ahead Spain will gain no advantage from having made the demarcation and that there are no implications for Gibraltar from that ploy.

Apart from maritime co-operation and the aquatic environment - the statement did not make clear if these issues are up for discussion on Tuesday or suspended - there has been agreement at technical level that can lead to announcements on co-operation on judicial, customs and crime co-operation involving information and operational links, visa discussions to ease the problems affecting some non-EU nationals who cross the frontier, educational links and financial services, possibly including a tax pact with Spain similar to that with the US and Ireland.

Mr Caruana said that the visit to Gibraltar by Sr Moratinos is “good news” even though no side actually makes a benefit as such from his coming to the Rock. He said it reflects Gibraltar’s “political maturity” to be able to host the event.

“It is positive. It does not advance Spain’s position and it does not advance our position. It is positive for Gibraltar, otherwise I would not have encouraged it,” he said on GBC radio.