Having won the referendum vote on NATO in March, Felipe González decided to call a General Election in June 1986, rather than run the full four-year term and wait until the autumn. An evaluation of the first PSOE government's foreign policy achievements would leave a question mark as far as NATO was concerned (largely because it was not clear what the Government's aims had been). But there could be no doubt that entry into the EC and the unblocking of the negotiations on Gibraltar had been the Government's two major successes.

Sr González comfortably won a second term, and just as he had done after his first victory, he included references to Gibraltar when presenting his new Government's programme in the Congress on 22 July. He expressed the hope that an agreement could be reached between Britain and Spain by 1990 on the decolonisation of Gibraltar. Setting a target date—a least for an agreement on procedures and a timetable, however long-term—at least gave the impression that the Government was determined not to let up the pressure on Britain. It would also give Felipe González the whole of his second term in which to achieve this objective and earn himself a place in the history books; he may perhaps have envisaged that a third successive term with himself at the helm could not be guaranteed. If that was the case, he was being over-optimistic about Gibraltar, although unduly pessimistic about his chances of continuing as Prime Minister into the following decade.

A sign of British concession soon came—though hardly enough to encourage Sr González that his target was likely to be met.