THERE IS A sense of sadness in one of the top floors of the modern building that houses the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid known as Las Torres (The Towers). From here, overlooking the city across the main M30, officials work on the nitty gritty of Brexit, 30 years after Spain joined the European Union. The feeling is so different from the excitement felt in 1986 when everything was being built. ‘Somebody has to do it’ says one of the officials who has been keeping an eye on all things related to the referendum.
Just days after the vote last year, a so called Interministerial Commission started meeting every week at the Moncloa palace, the Spanish version of Downing Street, to prepare for Brexit. Led by Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, they work on two new European treaties: an exit one that will be implemented after 2019, and then a Canadian-style commercial treaty that would take several years to negotiate, as explained to me by this official.
The whole process could be finished by 2023: ‘With the UK, negotiations will be faster than they were with Canada. We know each other very well’. This official uses the word divorce many times when he refers to the negotiation process: ‘The question is whether to make the main decisions – the house, the children – right at the beginning or when things have calmed down’.
I perceive the importance – and again the sadness – of what Spain is doing: ‘For the British, the survival of the United Kingdom depends on a good negotiation. For us, it is about the survival of the European Union itself. All 27 members agree on this basic idea: the continuation of the European Union’.
At the start of this year, Spaniards received icily Theresa May’s January speech setting out her plan for Brexit negotiations – often putting her words alongside those of Donald Trump. You might not like the coupling; but many Spaniards tend to put both leaders in the same bag, especially since May’s main Brexit speech. ‘Antipática’ – something between unsympathetic and simply not nice – is the general feeling among ordinary people here when they try to describe Mrs May.
As I gathered thoughts, from those in government to citizens I’d run across in my daily business, and from across the political spectrum, one dominant view prevailed: how can May’s proposals not be bad for Britain and perhaps for others, too?
The Spanish media were certainly unimpressed by the UK Prime Minister’s words. El País, Spain’s leading newspaper, was particularly hard, underlining ‘delirium and haughtiness’ in her speech. The staunchly pro-European Madrid daily accused her in its editorial of supporting a ‘shameless and xenophobic nationalism’. It added that ‘Nothing in May’s speech sounds right. The promise to reach a “positive deal” is misguided. It is not positive to show contempt towards European citizens nor to discriminate against its residents. Neither does it make sense to threaten the Europeans Britain will have to negotiate with…’ (El País, 2017).
The tone in almost all of the media was similar. Mrs May’s words were described as challenging, hostile, hard, threatening, without concessions, illogical, extreme and fierce. According to Miguel Otero-Iglesias, a member of the main foreign affairs think-tank the Real Instituto Elcano: ‘The time when the British empire used to decide the rules of the game was back in the 19th century’ (Otero-Iglesias, 2017)
Some commentators, on both left and right, accused Mrs May of wanting to mistreat the 3.3 million EU citizens living in Britain, or of simply working to transform the country into a tax haven. Neatly pointing out the contradictions in the British position, writer José María Carrascal suggested that Britain would not get away with a ‘hard Brexit for the Europeans and soft for them’ (Carrascal, 2017).
The new Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alfonso Dastis, who took the job last November, is soft spoken and gentle compared with his predecessor, José Manuel García-Margallo. But even he was pretty clear: ‘The European Union was born without the United Kingdom and it can continue perfectly well without it. In fact, besides being a challenge, Brexit can be an opportunity to renew the European project’ (Dastis, 2017).
But he tried to calm the waters by underlining that Mrs May’s words were meant ‘for inside consumers and expected to create an exit narrative through forceful messages’. So there is also a recognition of UK domestic realities, and Dastis emphasised that Spain’s attitude should be wait and see until Article 50 has been activated.
After a year of political turmoil, and a caretaker government, there is now a view in Madrid that Spain can play a leading role in the relaunch of the European project. Dastis insisted that the UK should formally report its will to leave the European Union as soon as possible; and that Spain is ready to start the separation process. Indeed, the stakes are so high that there are no divisions on this amongst the Spanish political class, normally very divided.
The Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, his powerful number two, Sáenz de Santamaría, and all of the top Spanish representatives, have echoed Dastis’ insistence that all four European liberties (people, goods, services and capital) go together, and the UK will not get away with keeping only the commercial right.
While working on the process of saying farewell to the UK, Spaniards keep a close eye on Scotland and Gibraltar, on top of the eight public sectors identified as being affected by Brexit (Informe Deloitte, 2016). In both cases, European politics becomes domestic policy. Take Scotland, whose situation could compare dangerously to Catalonia, the northeast territory that is threatening to hold an independence referendum this summer. If Scotland were allowed to stay within the EU after Brexit, why not an independent Catalonia?
Spain feels deep sympathy for the Scottish people, a clear majority of whom have voted to stay in the European Union. But when it comes to the negotiation, the Spanish line is clear – ‘The European Union is an international organization of States. There is no such thing as autonomous European citizenship. One has European citizenship because one belongs to a State. This is a question of pure international law. Nothing to do with regional problems, which we all have’ (Interview, 2017a).
‘With Brexit, the UK leaves the EU with its four nations and its four overseas territories – the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar (a British Overseas Territory) and its bases in Cyprus (the two Sovereign Base Areas). Everything goes. About this question there is no doubt. All 27 members agree’. This is incorrect; in that British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies (the latter being the Isle of Man and Channel Isles) are not part of the UK: they constitutionally sit outside the UK and the EU (the exception being Gibraltar).
This takes us into Gibraltar, where Spain finds the silver lining to a sombre Brexit. Dastis is the opposite of his rambunctious predecessor Margallo, but he too has been very direct about the tiny peninsula perched on the tip of southern Spain and belonging to the UK since 1714, saying that ‘Any decision on Gibraltar’s relations with the post-Brexit EU will need Spain’s approval’ (Dastis, 2017). This attitude is what Picardo calls ‘rain without thunder’; after Margallo´s threats, the official policy remains unchanged (Picardo, 2017).
Spain has offered Gibraltar a joint sovereignty plan and is awaiting London´s proposal. Picardo has flatly refused the offer. If Gibraltarians were forced to choose between British sovereignty and a special relationship with the European Union, they would certainly decide to stay British. Even if that means giving up both freedom of movement and their access to the common market.
‘We are waiting for the UK to make either a joint proposal or four different ones’ in respect of each Dependent Territory. ‘What relationship will Gibraltar have with the European Union? Gibraltar is not Leeds, so it will have to factor in the need to secure Spain’s agreement. Madrid is not going to accept Gibraltar being a satellite of the UK outside the EU, but retaining all the privileges of membership, in particular freedom of movement and the common market’ (Interview, 2017b).
Spain’s main concern is the 6,000 Spanish nationals who cross the frontier every day from the impoverished Spanish border town of La Linea into wealthy Gibraltar, to work as waiters, cleaning ladies and other service professions. The other 3,000, who daily cross from Spain to Gibraltar, are less of a concern to the Spanish government, namely the British nationals and other expats who live in the province of Cádiz but work in the financial area on the Rock.
Madrid’s red lines – smuggling, mainly of tobacco, and Gibraltar´s advantageous tax regime. ‘On its own entry in 1973 to the EU, the UK negotiated very special conditions for Gibraltar. On its entry in 1986, Spain accepted them all. But now things have changed. If Gibraltarians want to deal commercially with us, they will have to pay the same taxes as we all do’, said one diplomat.
Under Spain’s proposal for joint sovereignty, the frontier that remained closed between 1969 and 1983 would disappear. Gibraltarians would remain British, but could also have a Spanish passport if they wanted to – ‘it is time for them to stop just saying No, and to start making proposals. We are waiting’.
It is not only when it comes to Gibraltar that Spain feels the UK is on the losing side. As one top Spanish official put it to me: ‘the British government is trying to make us think that we have a problem. They are the ones who have a problem. And it is a very big one’.
In the street, I hear similar sentiments. ‘If they want to go and think only about themselves, then adiós’ said Juan, who looks after the maintenance of a building in Madrid.
‘May’s speech wasn’t that important – we are already feeling the consequences of Brexit in my office: the British have less money to spend’ said Leticia, on her way from Madrid to Jerez de la Frontera in Andalucia where she works in the tourism sector, adding that 25 per cent of the tourists in Spain come from the UK. As it happened, Mrs May´s speech coincided with Spain’s yearly tourism fair in Madrid, where the negative effect of Brexit was a popular line of conversation.
Amid this turmoil, at least one Spaniard, 26-year-old Miguel Bescós, chose to be pragmatic: last week he joined the at least 200,000 Spaniards already living in the UK; and travelled to Liverpool to learn English and maybe work as a waiter. He can’t find a job in Spain and thinks that soon it will be more difficult for him to go to the UK – ‘Now you just buy a plane ticket and go. In a few months’ time, who knows?’
Ironically, the newly appointed Spanish ambassador to the UK, Carlos Bastarreche, belongs to the so-called ‘trinitarios’, the group of top diplomats who, in the mid-eighties, worked from the Palacio de Trinidad, the then headquarters of Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, negotiating Spain’s entry into the European Union. They were considered the best and the brightest in the Foreign Service. There was no feeling of sadness then, just of hope and a new beginning.
Just before leaving for London, Bastarreche received a priority instruction from the government in Madrid; from the Spanish Consulate in Belgrave Square, to find a way of helping those whom Madrid feel now have the most to lose from Brexit. Namely, Miguel and the other Spaniards living, like him, in the UK. Them, and 65 million British people.
Carrascal, J.M. (2017), ‘Brexit, ¿ por qué no?’, ABC, 21 January.
Dastis, A. (2017), Foro Nueva Economía, 18 January.
El País (2017), ‘Un Brexit extremista’, 18 January.
Informe Deloitte (2016), ‘El impacto del Brexit en el sector público’, July.
Interview (2017a; 2017b), Spanish officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Otero-Iglesias, Miguel (2017), “El incongruente Brexit de May”, El País, 18 January.
Picardo, F. (2017), El Mundo, 25 January.