From my reading of things, the veto is a paper tiger. As a member of the EU it has a veto on all treaties and deals before they are ratified. This happened recently when a region of Belgium held up the ratification of a trade deal with Canada. This particular veto is nothing they didn't have. Effectively it's the EU strengthening its hand for the negotiations.
As for can Spain take Gibraltar, of course it could. Whether it could keep it is another matter. It's similar to Howard saying we would defend it like we defended the Falklands. I hope that doesn't mean we're going to let the Spanish walk in and then spend inordinate amounts of money and lives to take it back. If we spend lives to have to liberate Gibrateans on the scale we did to liberate a proportionate number of Falklanders we won't have much of an army left.
It's all moot though, Spain is not going to try and retake the Rock. They may be gits about things but they aren't stupid.
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