I don’t know if you agree, dear readers, but to me, the war in Iran, against Iran or in Iran —choose the preposition you like best— seems more and more like a conga of ‘one step back and two steps forward’. And above all, it starts to seem like a joke, the consequences of which we still do not know.
What we know for sure is that every time the markets, insurers, shipping companies, and ordinary mortals think that Washington and Tehran have reached an agreement, we start over. More bombings, wasted memorandums, broken agreements, mutual threats, and those ships that were starting to cross Hormuz reversing engines at full speed to avoid being the first to find out that the blockade has a military component.
In short, the fact is that we are practically at the same point as on March 1. Note the data: the price of oil today is below 76 dollars a barrel, practically the same as then. We have not advanced absolutely anything. Hormuz remains closed, mutual attacks continue, Trump has not returned Iran to the Middle Ages, his friends and sons-in-law continue to profit in the stock market from what is going to happen on the ground, and Netanyahu is once again free to continue devastating Lebanon and Gaza just a few months before the elections. He is the only major beneficiary of this war. “His” war.
In Spain, we also have “our” war. Less bloody, that’s for sure. It is our daily political war. But this week something will happen that will make the government of Pedro Sanchez a little happier, although it will not spare him from criticism. Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 14, the Treaty of Gibraltar will be signed —to be more precise, the “Agreement regarding Gibraltar between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, on one side, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, on the other“.
I suppose those who missed the previous chapter are wondering where Spain is in that long title that encompasses half the world. Well, it is not there. Half the world fits, except Spain because in reality the agreement is not between Spain and the United Kingdom, nor even between Spain and the European Union with the United Kingdom, but only between the European Union and the United Kingdom.
Clarifying who the signatories are, it is understood why important details are missing in the text. We already commented on it at the time. There is no commitment, no pact, nor even moderately solid references to the economic development of the Campo de Gibraltar and to other things that affect Spain but that, in reality, the community bureaucrats care about three cabbages… from Brussels. It is normal. Perhaps that is why the visit that Sánchez and Albares will make on the 15th to La Línea is happening.
The important thing is that there will finally be an agreement on Gibraltar, which will make the government and Minister Albares very happy, who already tried to take credit when the agreement was announced (in June of last year) and also when the text was made public (last February). There were even handshakes and moments of eternal friendship in which a majestic “we” was slipped in whenever possible.
The question is whether there will be more tomorrow, at the official signing of the Agreement. Some media say that Albares will attend the formal event in Brussels, aligned with the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, who has also not been part of the agreement discussions, but surely has influenced the British negotiating team much more than the Spanish government has over the European side. We will see.
Meanwhile, where both Sánchez and Albares are expected to show up is in La Línea the next day, Wednesday the 15th, to attend the institutional event for the demolition of the Fence. It is supposed that at this event the President of the Government should announce something important, apart from the usual institutional statements, but there are only reports that Albares will meet with the mayors of the area to “directly involve the institutions”, according to the newspaper EuropaSur.
I wonder why the mayors of a region that for years have cried out, unsuccessfully, to be “involved” were not “involved” before. But, as past water does not move the mill, if Pedro Sánchez plans to make any announcement for the Campo de Gibraltar, I would be satisfied with him signing it in writing right there.