dimanche 2 avril 2017

Rock bottom: Gibraltar and Brexit

Gibraltarians voted even more overwhelmingly than Scots for the UK to remain in the EU, but the shadow of Brexit has emboldened Spanish designs on regaining control of the territory. Despite a recent Gibraltar referendum coming out 99% in favour of staying British, Madrid brought pressure to bear on the EU response to the Article 50 letter that specifically suggests that no agreement between the UK and the EU applied to Gibraltar unless the Spanish say so. It's hard to think of a comparable scenario, except perhaps a similar stipulation that and UK/EU agreement does not apply to Northern Ireland unless Dublin says so.

It would seem that the Spanish are (wrongly) assuming that Gibraltarians value EU status over their British one, which seems like extreme wishful thinking. Are we heading for a return to the days of aggressive Spanish border restrictions, the loss of the territory to Spain, or something else?

Part of me smiles at the thought that perhaps a solution would be for the UK to cede Gibraltar to Malta, just to piss off the Spanish.


via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2nu7r2p

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