The path to agreement

By Christine Vasquez
One of the questions most asked on the Rock these days (other than perhaps ‘si hace levante or poniente’) is whether we’ll have a treaty. We have been so close: “99.9%” “Within touching distance,” “In the final stages” and “Really almost there”.

What we tend to forget is that the idea that Spain actually talks to Gibraltar and that Gibraltar has a voice is relatively new- in fact it started 20 years ago with a little remembered meeting in Chevening, Kent. Then, Chief Minister Sir Peter Caruana expressed confidence in the process of talks and on initial contacts with senior British and Spanish diplomats.

After the meeting he told GBC: “The days of bilateral deals struck in dark smoky rooms are over.”

An agreement was reached in 2005, a year later. The Chevening Agreement established the Trilateral Process of Dialogue which would pave the way for the Cordoba agreements in 2006 and treaty negotiations today. It secured the terms for trilateral dialogue with Gibraltar participating in these talks as a matter of course.

The terms included that Gibraltar should have its own voice, that it should be there on an equal basis and that it should be free from agreements imposed on it against its wishes.

In 2008, Sir Peter would tell the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Select Committee that the trilateral Process was the political architecture or structure of dialogue and the Cordoba Agreements the first fruits of that.

The Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Sir Philip Barton has been on the Rock over the past few days.

As well as having been Head of Mission to Washington and High Commissioner to India and Pakistan, Sir Philip was Deputy Governor from 2005 to 2008, acting Governor for a spell in 2006. Now a top civil servant, his knowledge of all things Gibraltar will serve us well.

He witnessed, and together with Sir Peter Caruana, was instrumental in achieving two major advancements- the rights gained in the 2006 Constitution and Gibraltar’s own voice.

He was the middle man between London and Gibraltar- conveying to each side just how far the other was willing to move and in what direction. One of his many skills, Sir Peter told me reminiscing, was “patient and inspired diplomacy- an ability to avoid sterile confrontation and, instead, patiently explore and build on common ground on which agreement may be possible and language that both sides could agree. He therefore made a very significant contribution to the resolution of seemingly intractractable political problems.”

Inevitably not everything Cordoba promised came to fruition but it did unblock issues in telecommunications when Gibraltar did not have an international code and was running out of numbers, Spanish pensions, the use of Spanish airspace and frontier flow. But its main achievement was it showed the process worked. What started in Chevening that weekend in 2004 was the process groundwork for negotiations today. It was instrumental in normalising contacts and dialogue with senior Spanish officials and ministers.

As Sir Peter Caruana puts it: “One positive step leads to another and that is the essence of successful politics and diplomacy.”

The question of whether or not we’ll have a treaty remains. The Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo says he’ll carry on talking and it won’t be him who leaves the table but agreement will still only be possible if they can find that common ground, and language, that in this case, all four sides can live with.

Christine Vasquez is News Editor at GBC.