Stumbling blocks to Gib treaty are ‘deeply technical’ and unrelated to ‘age-old’ cross-border politics, CM says

The remaining stumbling blocks to agreeing a UK/EU treaty on Gibraltar’s post-Brexit relations with bloc are “deeply technical in nature” and unrelated to “age-old politics” between Gibraltar and Spain, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said on Thursday.

Mr Picardo was replying to questions in the Gibraltar Parliament from Keith Azopardi, the Leader of the Opposition, who had asked him for an update on the treaty negotiations.

The Chief Minister said that since the last high-level political meeting between the UK, the European Commission, Spain and Gibraltar in Brussels on September 19, agreement was “even closer” thanks to the intensity of the discussions.

But he said too that agreement remained elusive as negotiators sought solutions to technical problems relating how Gibraltar will dovetail with EU rules without overstepping anyone’s political red lines.

“Together with the United Kingdom government, we continue with our negotiations with the EU unabated and progress continues to be made,” Mr Picardo said.

“We are not yet in a position to announce that agreement at the political level has been reached, but as a result of the intensity and ingenuity with which teams have worked since the last ministerial meeting In Brussels on 19 September, we're even closer today than we were then.”

“We're ready to continue intense negotiations on every day available to ensure we reach agreement or the end of the road in the shortest time available.”

“But we cannot negotiate alone.”

“We cannot negotiate matters related to sovereignty, jurisdiction and control, and we cannot agree anything that is not safe, secure or beneficial.”

“But we have put on the table solutions that guarantee the safety and security of the Schengen area and the integrity of the single market, and which do not cross any of our red lines or our commercial and practical concerns.”

“If those were accepted, we could declare agreement reached tomorrow.”

Mr Picardo commended negotiators “on all sides” for their “diligence and continued hard work and commitment”.

“I am sure we will get there with goodwill, good faith and good old fashioned hard work,” he added.

As often happens in these exchanges, Mr Azopardi invited the Chief Minister to give as much detail as possible on the remaining areas of disagreement, acknowledging that he was asking in the context of “a highly complex negotiation”.

“They are diverse in nature,” Mr Picardo replied.

“They are not related to a specific theme.”

The treaty has at its core agreeing a framework for the movement of persons and goods, and the remaining areas yet to be settled related to “both of those two very broad pillars and not just one”.

The Chief Minister said the matters were “much more technical issues” than were being speculated on by some media.

“Many of them I think the Deputy Minister and I had never expected would be an issue,” he added.

“And if I may say so, I think the politicians around the table didn't expect these things to be the issue.”

“They are deeply technical issues that need to be resolved that are not related to what I might call the age-old politics between Gibraltar and Spain, to use a sort of catch all phrase.”

But he added: “I never discount those issues coming back.”

“We all know what happens at five minutes to midnight in negotiations, or indeed at one second to midnight in negotiations that we've been involved in.”

“But at the moment we're dealing with much deeper technical issues.”

“I don't think I can be drawn on that at this stage.”

“I would be delighted to be able to give him a clearer chronology, but because of the nature of the issues that are in play, it is not possible to be clearer at this stage simply because they have to play out and we have to find those solutions, and then we might be able to start to see the chronology that we all want to see for further political meetings and the progress that we want to materialise actually happen.”

“That's not to say that it's not actively something that we hope is being resolved, but it is requiring very deep technical analysis to resolve issues, which again I want to remind people, are not what we might call the perennial issues.”

“These are different issues. They're about how you interface with the two pillars of the [EU] acquis that we would be interfacing with.”