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Theresa May again in Brussels as Spain Threatens Brexit Summit

Theresa May again in Brussels as Spain Threatens Brexit Summit
folder_openUnited Kingdom access_time5 years ago
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Local Editor

British Prime Minister Theresa May was headed back to Brussels on Saturday to defend the planned Brexit divorce deal even as Spain threatened to boycott an EU summit meant to endorse it.

May has final day talks scheduled with EU leaders Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk, although diplomats said the withdrawal agreement is finished and ready for EU leaders to approve on Sunday.

While nothing in the 17-month withdrawal process has gone smoothly, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez warned on Friday he might not attend if the leaders do not acknowledge that Madrid holds a veto over the fate of Gibraltar in any post-Brexit negotiation of new EU-UK ties.

Visiting Cuba, Sanchez said that Madrid must be allowed to negotiate directly with London on Gibraltar and give its specific assent to any changes to its relationship to the European Union in a future agreement between Britain and Brussels.

"If there's no agreement, it's very clear what will happen, there very probably won't be a European Council" summit, he added.

Gibraltar, a tiny rocky outcrop home to a port and around 30,000 people, is a British territory claimed by Spain and will be a bone of contention as London negotiates a new relationship with Brussels after Brexit day on March 29.

Relatively, Spain's secretary of state for European affairs Luis Marco Aguiriano Nalda said Madrid wanted London to put in writing that it shared Madrid's interpretation of the negotiated Brexit deal texts regarding its stance on Gibraltar.

"We have demanded that it be published by the British authorities before the European Council on Sunday," he said in Brussels.

In London, however, a Downing Street source said he did not know what document Aguiriano could be referring to and added: "We have negotiated on behalf of the whole of the UK family. That includes Gibraltar and the overseas territories."

In legal terms, Spain's disapproval would not halt the divorce settlement, but it would embarrass EU leaders keen to show that the 27 are united.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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