And he reiterated Spain’s insistence that negotiations over the future relationship between Gibraltar and the EU should be handled separately to those with the U.K.

“I am very much [more] worried about the unity of the United Kingdom than the unity of the Kingdom of Spain. I think the United Kingdom will split apart before the Kingdom of Spain,” he said, in an apparent reference to movements in both Scotland and Northern Ireland to leave the U.K. over its EU departure.