The EU has put the future of Gibraltar at stake in the coming Brexit negotiations, effectively backing Spain in its centuries-old dispute with the UK over the British overseas territory.

After lobbying from Spanish diplomats, a clause has been inserted in the EU’s draft Brexit negotiating guidelines that appears to allow Spain to exclude Gibraltar from any transitional single market access arrangement or future trade deal with the UK if it is not satisfied with the status of the territory. This suggests that unless Britain is willing to let its citizens on “the rock” be subject to an inferior economic future than those in the UK, the EU has effectively handed the Spanish government a veto on Britain’s entire future relationship with the bloc.

“The union will stick up for its members, and that means Spain now,” a senior EU official said. The news is likely to infuriate London, which has insisted that its longstanding refusal to entertain Spain’s ambitions of reclaiming sovereignty over Gibraltar, which was ceded to Britain in 1713, will not be affected by Brexit.(guardian)…[+]