He’s coming
Against all odds and right up to the wire, the governments of Gibraltar, the UK and Spain have managed to pull it off.
The stage is now set for a historic event, the first time a Spanish foreign minister will set foot in Gib in an official capacity.
Miguel Angel Moratinos will fly into Malaga or Jerez before driving down to Gib for lunch with the UK’s David Miliband and Chief Minister Peter Caruana. Then a short press conference and it’s over.
The visit is going ahead even though the waters row, the source of the tension over the past week, remains unresolved. The dispute will be parked to one side.
Some say this is unsatisafactory, that talks should not go ahead until it is cleared up. Opposition parties on both sides of the border are already grumbling. That’s a good thing. It will keep everyone on their toes and should be seen as a sign that what’s going to happen next Tuesday is of great importance. It also means all sides – or at least, Gib and Spain – are taking a risk in order to keep on talking.
I know a lot of people will disagree with me here but I don’t think Moratinos’ visit poses a threat or represents any loss for Gib. We’ll still be ploughing ahead with the EU court case over the waters row, whatever happens next week. Spain hasn’t got away with that one. But in the meantime, surely everyone has something to gain from dialogue.
Whatever your views on the underlying issues, talking can’t be a bad thing.
Indeed, how long have we been saying to both Spain and UN come her and talk to us. Don’t talk about us in uninformed ignorance.
As such we are, IMO, wise to bank a visit. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I think the visit should have gone ahead even if the agreements were not ready. Especially since it helps to cement the other true LONG TERM benefit of the tripartite process and that is Spain talking directly to us.
Make no mistake, the tripartite process is Spain finally talking directly to us. Yes the UK is present as a third party, but the parties talk to each other directly.
Finally, we all know that we are not going to move on our read line positions. Therefore we need to be able to have the normal relationship that we want with our neighbor Spain despite differences of opinion and position.
The banana skin that spain through, changing the land during the process, was NOT – as some incorrectly believe – them attempting to advance their claim over our waters (as we know they claim this). Instead their banana skin was a changing of the relative legal bedrock in a specific area under tripartite discussion – environmental and enforcement practice in the waters.