When the new Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron met recently re-appointed Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares in Brussels this week there must have been at least a tinge of guilt in the air.
It was, after all, his decision to call a referendum on EU membership and then losing it that is responsible for the current state of affairs. That meeting, in the margins of a wider gathering of NATO foreign ministers, followed a telephone call between the two of them on Monday.
INTERVIEW
In an interview earlier in the day with Spanish TV channel Telecinco, Mr Albares again put across his well known mantra that Spain had many months ago put on the table a balanced and generous comprehensive agreement, which Madrid was ready to sign up to tomorrow.
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