Originally Posted by
El País
This week both the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the country’s foreign minister, Josep Borrell, made clear they would not sign off on the UK’s draft withdrawal agreement on Sunday if Article 184 within the text was not modified to make clear that negotiations on the future of the EU-UK relationship would not include Gibraltar. Instead, Madrid wants separate, bilateral negotiations on Gibraltar after Brexit, covering issues such as the price of tobacco products, the fate of cross-border workers, environmental concerns and cooperation on police and border control issues. Madrid and London this week reached preliminary agreements on these points, set out in four memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and a tax deal.
European Commission sources said on Thursday that the issue of Gibraltar, as well as others that have been raised by EU member states, would be resolved with resolutions appended to the main document. For now, the Political Declaration has also eliminated any direct reference to Article 184.