Community Lecture Series: Dr Joseph Garcia

The talk will cover the relationship between Gibraltar and what is now the European Union in a number of distinct phases. The first phase will cover the period before the United Kingdom and Gibraltar joined the European Economic Community as it was then. The second will deal with the period of EU membership leading to Brexit. The third phase will deal with a Gibraltar outside the European Union and with the new treaty relationship. Dr Garcia will argue that Gibraltar has often been at the mercy of external forces which have impacted the relationship with Europe, in particular the raging debate within the UK Conservative Party and obviously the impact of Spain after they joined the club in 1986. It will be a political and historical journey through time - the past, the present and the future.