The Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, on Tuesday held the Partido Popular responsible for trying to "sabotage" the agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom on Gibraltar by rejecting it in the European Parliament. As he warned, voting against this treaty means going "against the lives of the people of Cádiz", in particular the 300,000 residents of the Campo de Gibraltar and the 15,000 cross-border workers who directly benefit from its implementation.
"The Members of the European Parliament of the Partido Popular want to sabotage it (the agreement), as they have tried to do from the beginning; they want to vote against that treaty in the European Parliament," he said in statements to the media from Brussels. Despite this, he has expressed confidence that the text will move forward despite the opposition of the Spanish "populares", stressing that the ratification is progressing "normally" and that the outlook is "good".
Albares, who heads the PSOE list for Cádiz ahead of the elections on November 29, has stated that the PP's position on the agreement constitutes "an attack and a direct sabotage of the well-being of those 300,000 people from Cádiz in the Campo de Gibraltar" and of the 15,000 employees who cross the fence every day, as well as the economic opportunities that the pact opens up for municipalities such as La Línea de la Concepción and Algeciras.
"I don’t understand that the Partido Popular goes directly against the lives of the people of Cádiz, of the Andalusians of the Campo de Gibraltar, against the workers at the port of Algeciras, against the cross-border workers," he reiterated. He defended that the agreement—which, in principle, will be put to a vote in the European Parliament on December 14—will make it possible to improve coexistence and promote the creation of jobs throughout the area.
The head of Foreign Affairs indicated that he will take advantage of his trip to the Community capital to hold meetings with the officials of the European Commission in charge of managing the agreement, with the aim of "finishing analyzing" its implementation and getting "all the technical committees to start up definitively," after the first ones have already begun their work.
In parallel with his criticisms of the PP bloc, Albares has highlighted the progress of the approval process for the definitive agreement in the Eurochamber. It is expected that the competent parliamentary committees will hold a first vote one day after the elections in Spain, with the goal of that final endorsement reaching the December plenary.
"We are already very close to culminating the definitive ratification in the European Parliament. Everything is moving normally; the prospects are good," he stated, before emphasizing that the Executive is in contact "with all the political groups present" in the chamber to secure their support for this "historic" agreement.
Along these lines, he has underlined that the port of Algeciras is seeing an increase in its activity linked to the transit of goods destined for Gibraltar, which, as he explained, translates into more workload and into options to generate quality jobs and reinforce labor stability in the province of Cádiz.
The PP argues that Gibraltar is a matter of State
The Popular Party’s MEPs had already advanced their rejection of the agreement by considering that the Spanish Government has missed the opportunity provided by Brexit to move forward in asserting Spanish sovereignty over Gibraltar. In their view, the Executive has also ceded the capacity to control the application of the treaty and has allowed fiscal and regulatory imbalances to persist between the Rock and the adjacent municipalities.
Specifically, the 'popular' MEP Francisco Millán Mon defined the pact as a "great opportunity missed" for not addressing the decolonization of Gibraltar, despite the fact that Spain had a right of veto over the text. "The Spanish Government has not wanted to take the opportunity to make progress in decolonization," he lamented last September.
In addition, the PP criticized that the agreement will not be submitted for authorization by the Cortes Generales, unlike what happens in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar, by understanding that it affects Spanish competences and therefore should be processed as a mixed agreement. "It is an assault for it not to go through the Cortes," the 'popular' MPs denounced.
This position is also reflected in the Partido Popular election program, presented this Tuesday, in which Gibraltar is defined as "a matter of state." Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party commits to resuming "a responsible dialogue with the United Kingdom" to review the consequences of the agreement, which it criticizes for not having been ratified by the Spanish Parliament, and stresses that it will continue to defend Spanish sovereignty over the Rock, as well as the interests and prosperity of the Campo de Gibraltar.