Nearly a decade after 17.4 million Britons voted for Brexit the Spanish Prime Minister has expressed his desire for the United Kingdom to rejoin the European project In an interview published by the British magazine The New Statesman, the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, defended the need to overcome the obstacle represented by Gibraltar in relations between Spain and the United Kingdom, while expressing his full support for a possible British return to the European Union.
‘Of course,’ he replied when asked if he would support such a possibility. ‘We miss the United Kingdom within the European Union,’ he said, stressing that there is a clear need for the country to return to the bloc, especially in the current context. Sánchez described the dispute over the Rock of Gibraltar as an outstanding issue that must be resolved in order to fully normalise bilateral relations.
The president is committed to dialogue as a way to reach a solution that is beneficial to both parties, while reaffirming the Spanish government’s traditional position on this strategic enclave. In the interview, the PSOE leader, whom the British publication describes as an ‘icon of the European left’, also addressed key issues on his agenda, such as immigration, defence policy and the situation in Gaza, but he was particularly emphatic in expressing his pro-European vision and his willingness to restore the ties lost after Brexit.
At the head of a coalition between the PSOE and Sumar, Sánchez believes that his government is setting an alternative model to that of the global right, a ‘Spanish and progressive way of doing things’ which, he argued, is proving to work. But, the European Union (EU) is demanding that any future British government pay financial compensation if it decides to abandon a possible agreement to “reset” relations after Brexit, which Brussels is negotiating with Keir Starmer’s Labour government, according to the Financial Times.
According to a draft of the pact accessed by the newspaper, the European Commission has included a termination clause that would require the UK to pay a hefty restitution if it chooses to withdraw from a proposed veterinary agreement between London and Brussels, aimed at removing bureaucratic barriers to trade in food and beverages after Britain’s departure from the bloc.
EU diplomats have dubbed this provision the ‘Farage clause’, designed, they explained, to protect the EU from the risk that the leader of the right-wing populist Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, could become prime minister and fulfil his promise to reverse Starmer’s rapprochement with Brussels.
Farage, whose party leads the polls, confirmed to the Financial Times that he would ‘break’ any agreement signed with the EU-27 without handing over any money.