The Lisbon Agreement was the first of a series of agreements between the British and Spanish governments intended to resolve their differences concerning

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

Background

The 1969 Gibraltarian constitutional order made it clear that the British would not impose a solution on the Gibraltarians and acknowledged their right to

self-determination Self-determination refers to a people's right to form its own political entity, and internal self-determination is the right to representative government with full suffrage. Self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international la ...

in their political future.

Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (born Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general and dictator who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces i ...

continued to insist that Gibraltar was territorially integral to Spain and, "in a fit of diplomatic pique", Dodds, 2004, pp. 20. ordered the closure of the border in 1969. For the next 16 years, Gibraltar was reliant on an airlink with Britain for formal access to the outside world. The closure of the border hardened Gibraltar's attitudes towards Franco and Spain more generally.

It is also ironic that the actions taken by Francisco Franco and Spain completely destroyed any potential for winning over the population and gaining support in either Britain or Gibraltar for transfer of sovereignty to Spain.... This natural tendency of the two populations to interact demonstrated the artificial division that had been created and continued to exist so long as Britain retained possession of Gibraltar. Instead, he demanded the immediate return of Gibraltar, initiated a newspaper campaign in which the entire population was characterised as criminals and individuals of dubious moral character, and imposed border restrictions that caused real hardship on the inhabitants.

Diplomatic stalemate

A diplomatic stalemate persisted until after the death of Franco, when

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...

's government initiated a political process that resulted in the Lisbon Agreement. Jackson, 1990, pp. 325–326 It was a joint statement by the Spanish Foreign Minister, Marcelino Oreja, and the British Foreign Secretary

Lord Carrington Peter Alexander Rupert Carington, 6th Baron Carrington, Baron Carington of Upton (6 June 1919 – 9July 2018), was a British Conservative Party politician and hereditary peer who served as Defence Secretary from 1970 to 1974, Foreign Secreta ...

signed in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

on 10 April 1980. Its preamble stated:

The British and Spanish governments, desiring to strengthen their bilateral relations and thus to contribute to Western solidarity, intend, in accordance with the relevant United Nations Resolutions, to resolve, in a spirit of friendship, the Gibraltar problem.

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

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External links

* * *{{cite web, first=Thomas James , last=Finlayson , author-link=Tommy Finlayson , url=http://www.chronicle.gi/Features/tommy%20finlayson.htm , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040428105456/http://www.chronicle.gi/Features/tommy%20finlayson.htm , url-status=dead , archive-date=2004-04-28 , title=The Struggle for Democracy , work=

Gibraltar Chronicle The ''Gibraltar Chronicle'' is a national newspaper published in Gibraltar since 1801. It became a daily in 1821. It is Gibraltar's oldest established daily newspaper and the world's second-oldest English language newspaper to have been in pri ...