The Hindu : International : Spain backs down in Gibraltar talks

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Tuesday, Dec 07, 2004

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International

Spain backs down in Gibraltar talks

By Giles Tremlett

MADRID, DEC. 6. The 300-year row between Spain and Britain over Gibraltar enters a new and different phase this week as talks begin with, for the first time, the Gibraltarians also sitting at the negotiating table. Although the meeting is billed as talks about talks, the presence of Gibraltar's Chief Minister, Peter Caruana, marks a radical change in the process of deciding what is to be done with the Rock.

A spokesman for the U.K. Foreign Office said on Wednesday's meeting at Chevening House in Kent would be to discuss the creation of a new forum for dialogue that would include the Gibraltarians.

``This forum would provide Gibraltar with its own distinct voice, and would have an open agenda ... Future discussion over Gibraltar would take place through a three-sided dialogue rather than a bilateral negotiation,'' he said.

Mr. Caruana's presence has, however, aroused the suspicion of Opposition groups on the Rock who have warned that they will be watching carefully to make sure he does not cede on the key issue of sovereignty.

Shared sovereignty

Britain and Spain agreed two years ago that, in principle, they would be prepared to share sovereignty over the two-and-a-quarter square miles of promontory at the mouth of the Mediterranean.

That provoked the almost unanimous opposition of Gibraltarians. Mr. Caruana called a referendum in which 99 per cent of the Rock's voters said they did not want any form of shared sovereignty with their old enemy, Spain. But with the change of Government in Spain earlier this year, which saw Jose Maria Aznar's tough-talking conservative People's party replaced by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's socialists, Madrid's approach has changed radically.

Wooing Gibraltarians

The socialists have exchanged the stick for the carrot and made it clear that, while they do not intend to drop Spain's historic claim to sovereignty, they want to woo the support of Gibraltarians.

The new government has, therefore, dropped Madrid's traditional insistence that it can only deal directly with the Foreign Office and has invited Mr. Caruana to the table.

``That is not an easy thing for traditional Spanish diplomacy to digest,'' Spain's El Mundo newspaper warned last week.

``It is certainly the first time there has been a meeting like this in recent years,'' a spokesman for the British embassy in Madrid said.

A spokesman for Mr. Caruana said he was looking forward to ``this long-awaited opportunity to try and establish a new process of dialogue on terms and for purposes acceptable to and safe for Gibraltar''.

But he denied accusations that he might be preparing to give way on sovereignty. ``The Gibraltar Government's position on sovereignty and the purpose of dialogue has been made clear and is clear.'' Opposition groups on the Rock have complained that the parameters of the talks have not been made clear.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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