Spain says treaty will bring ‘peaceful coexistence’ while preserving sovereignty positions

Spain told the UN’s Committee of 24 on Monday that the UK/EU treaty on Gibraltar would deliver “peaceful coexistence and prosperity” for the region, while protecting the respective legal positions of both Madrid and London.

Hector Gomez, Spain’s ambassador to the UN, said the agreement was designed to address the fallout from Brexit while preserving each side’s stance on sovereignty and jurisdiction.

In doing so, he made clear Spain’s view of the treaty as a pragmatic post-Brexit arrangement while maintaining, in parallel, its long-standing argument before the UN that Gibraltar’s future must still be addressed through negotiations with the UK.

“From a legal standpoint the EU and Spain were on one side and the United Kingdom on the other,” Mr Gomez said.

“We tried to mitigate the effects of this situation without doing any harm to the inhabitants of the non-self-governing territory or to the neighbouring Spanish region that was affected by the continued presence of a colonial situation which creates inequality.”

Mr Gomez said Spain’s position remained that Gibraltar’s decolonisation should be addressed through the principle of territorial integrity, a point he tied directly to UN resolutions and to Spain’s interpretation of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht.

He told the committee that Spain remained “the victim of a colonial situation which is gravely impacting our territorial integrity”, describing that as “a stumbling block hindering the furtherance of international law”.

But Mr Gomez said the treaty’s purpose was practical rather than constitutional and sought “to mitigate the effect of Brexit”.

“The primary goal of that agreement was to guarantee the peaceful coexistence and prosperity of the region of a whole of the as a whole,” he said, adding its provisional implementation was on July 15.

He said the treaty would remove physical barriers and allow freer movement across the frontier, presenting this as a benefit for communities on both sides.

“What we'll see is the elimination of all physical barriers in furtherance of that goal,” Mr Gomez said.

“The fence will fall [and] that will guarantee the free movement of persons and goods between the territory of Gibraltar and the surrounding area.”

“The agreement is designed to improve the daily lives of 300,000 inhabitants of the area and particularly the lives of daily cross-frontier workers.”

But Mr Gomez was equally clear that, in Spain’s view, the treaty does not touch the underlying dispute.

“I want to underscore the fact that the agreement between the EU and the UK on Gibraltar safeguards the respective legal positions held by Spain and the UK in terms of sovereignty and jurisdiction,” he said.

That point was central to the thrust of his intervention, which presented the treaty as a mechanism to soften the impact of Brexit while leaving intact Spain’s claim and its call for further talks with the UK on sovereignty.

“In light of the above, we reiterate our appeal to the UK to tackle the decolonisation of Gibraltar with full respect for the principle of territorial integrity,” Mr Gomez said.

He said the outcome Spain sought remained “a negotiated and definitive solution to the dispute” in line with UN resolutions.

Earlier in his address, Mr Gomez repeated Spain’s historic position on the scope of what was ceded under the Treaty of Utrecht, telling the committee: “What was not ceded was the waters around the Rock or the isthmus that was occupied illegally in the 19th century.”

“Nor was the overlying airspace ceded.”