University of Cádiz puts focus on Brexit and Gibraltar

Chief Minister Fabian Picardo will deliver a talk on Gibraltar and Brexit this Thursday to Spanish university students, part of the annual San Roque summer courses organised by the University of Cádiz.

The course, which starts on Wednesday, is entitled ‘Gibraltar, European external border – Negotiating Brexit and its consequences’.

The three day is coordinated by Alejandro del Valle, a professor of law and international relations at the university, and Gibraltarian lawyer Charles Gomez, who is an honorary professor in international law at the university.

The first two sessions will be held in San Roque, with student travelling to the Rock on Friday for the final lectures at the University of Gibraltar.

The course will feature talks and debate involving past and present politicians and government officials from both sides of the border, as well as participation from unions, academics and representatives of civil society here and in Spain.

It will centre on the challenges and opportunities facing Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar as a result of Brexit, although other issues including the strategic role of the Strait of Gibraltar will also be discussed.

Speakers on Wednesday include Fernando Morán Calvo-Sotelo, the Campo representative of the Spanish Ministry for Foreign Affairs; retired Spanish ambassador Juan Antonio Yáñez-Barnuevo; and Ángel Luis Sánchez Muñoz, secretary general for foreign initiatives at the Junta de Andalucia.

Wednesday’s session will also include a talk on ‘Russia, Gibraltar and Rota: Security in the Strait’, delivered by Luis Romero Bartumeus, an honorary professor of international relations at the University of Cádiz.

Thursday’s session will open with a talk on cross-border workers followed by the Chief Minister’s intervention.

That will be followed by two round-table discussions, the first including a panel of local and Spanish representatives of the Cross Frontier Group, the second – entitled ‘Gibraltar and Brexit in practice’ – drawing on input from lawyers and politicians including La Linea mayor Juan Franco.

The session will close with a talk on ‘the Gibraltarian view’ of the Brexit negotiations, delivered by Gibraltar’s Attorney General, Michael Llamas, QC.

In Gibraltar on Friday, the sessions will commence with a talk by Gibraltarian academic Jamie Trinidad entitled ‘Self Determination in Disputed Colonial Territories: Gibraltar’.

It will be followed by a talk on the Brexit negotiations and the Spanish perspective, including on Gibraltar, deliveed by Professor Ignacio Molina Álvarez de Cienfuegos, a professor of political science at the Autonomous University of Madrid and principal investigator at the Royal Elcano Institute in Madrid.

It will be followed by a debate moderated by Charles Gomez, ahead of the closure of the course by San Roque mayor, Juan Carlos Ruiz Boix.