MADRID, 11 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, has admitted that he sees the agreement on Gibraltar “closer” but has lowered expectations that there may be an announcement in that regard at the three-party meeting that he will hold this Friday. in Brussels with his British counterpart, David Cameron, and with the vice president of the European Commission in charge of relations with the United Kingdom, Maros Sefcovic.
In an interview on Onda Cero, collected by Europa Press, he once again insisted on the complexity of negotiating the agreement that will regulate the Rock’s relationship with the EU after Brexit and reiterated his mantra that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”
“But I believe that we are getting closer to everything being agreed,” he noted, explaining that in recent weeks there have been “important rapprochements of our positions with the United Kingdom” in meetings at a technical level.
As he indicated, “the situation is beginning to be ripe” for his meeting to take place with Cameron and Sefcovic, who from Brussels have announced that they are seeking to take stock of the point at which the negotiations are, after 18 rounds held since they started. in October 2021.
However, he has made it clear that “perhaps tomorrow will not be the final day, because these are complex issues” and we will have to proceed now to drafting the agreement, “but we are already beginning to get close to being able to have an agreement on the general lines.” , he pointed out.
Thus, he has said that the Government trusts that the agreement will occur “as soon as possible”, but without offering a specific time horizon. “But I believe that we are already very close to the agreement and what all parties see is that there is a very positive dynamic,” he remarked.
On the other hand, Albares has clarified that the Brussels meeting is a three-way meeting between him, Cameron and Commissioner Sefcovic, who is the one who negotiates the agreement with London on behalf of the EU, and that the presence of the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo , is because it is part of the British delegation, as has already happened on other occasions.
It was precisely the Gibraltarian Government that announced this Friday’s meeting in the European capital by informing that Picardo would attend it, after the European Commission, London and Madrid had signed up for an imminent high-level meeting.
