Spain, Britain, Gibraltar agree airport deal

11 February 2005

MALAGA – Spain, Britain and Gibraltar have agreed to form a new working group to coordinate use of the colony’s airport.

The agreement was forged at the newly-created forum for dialogue on Gibraltar which  met for the first time in Malaga, with representatives of the British colony sitting alongside the Spanish and British negotiating teams.
 
The agreement marks a shift in relations between Spain, Britain and Gibraltar over the disputed colony.

In November 2002, the 30,000 citizens of Gibraltar nearly unanimously voted in an unofficial referendum to maintain their status as a British territory, destroying all Spanish hopes of moving towards future joint sovereignty.

Britain and Spain have over the past two years broached the idea of future joint sovereignty for Gibraltar, which was ceded to Britain under the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht.

The forum for dialogue was created last December, granting Gibraltar a seat at the negotiating table for the first time.

Britain was represented at Friday’s meeting by the foreign office’s director for the European Union Dominick Chilcott, while the Spanish foreign ministry’s Europe-America director Jose Pons also attended.

A three-way joint statement released in December announced the setting up of the forum on the territory at Spain’s southern tip held by Britain for 300 years, in which any decision or agreement must be approved by all three parties.

Last month Caruana said that Britain had abandoned the idea of joint sovereignty over Gibraltar, while saying he supported the idea of decolonisation.

This, he said then, should be achieved through Gibraltarian self-determination.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news