ARCHIVED - Negotiations over Brexit details in Gibraltar left until the last minute

The formation of a new Spanish government causes the postponement of meetings

A meeting which had been planned between the Foreign Affairs department of the Spanish government and their counterparts in the UK to iron out the remaining details concerning the future of Gibraltar has been postponed by Madrid due to the prolongation of the process by which Pedro Sánchez was finally appointed President of the next government of Spain this week.

Meetings had been scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of next week but as details emerge of the exact composition of the new government of Spain Sr Sánchez has called the first meeting of the new Cabinet on Tuesday. In theory the relevant Minister is not needed at the Gibraltar meetings, where the issues to be discussed are mainly technical, but the political importance of the topic has led to them being postponed.

It is now hoped that they can be held in the week beginning 20^th January, just days before the date on which Brexit will take effect.

Among those topics on which the final details have yet to be agreed following the basic principles which were established in November 2018 are the sale price of tobacco and cigarettes in the Rock as of 1^st February, the rights of Spanish workers crossing into the British Overseas Territory every day, the nature of police and customs collaboration and various environmental concerns.

The documents signed in November 2018 included one concerning the sale price of tobacco and cigarettes in the Rock, establishing that the current price differential which means that cigarettes are 48 per cent cheaper on the Gibraltar side of the border than in the neighbouring region of Andalucía is to be cut to 32 per cent by the introduction of taxes on tobacco in Gibraltar before June 2020, reducing the incentive for smugglers. In general terms this is representative of the general tone of the agreements signed, the common intention being to reduce the differences between Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar, where unemployment and contraband trading are rife.

Meanwhile, another important Brexit-related step is also without a fixed date as yet, namely the day by which the priorities of Spain in drawing up the structure of the future relationship between the EU and the UK must be submitted to Michel Barnier, the European Commission's Head of Task Force for Relations with the United Kingdom.

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