In the autumn of 1988 Spain was due to receive first-time visits from both Queen Elizabeth and Mrs Thatcher. The visits were a sign that Britain felt comfortable about the way in which negotiations on Gibraltar were proceeding, and an indication that Spain accepted rapprochement at all levels as a necessary concomitant to those negotiations. The visits also served to demonstrate the determination on the part of the British Government that the message conveyed by the Gibraltarians through the election of Joe Bossano would not affect good relations between Britain and Spain and would not impede the continuation of the negotiation process.

Before these visits took place, however, there was earlier in the year another first visit, this time by General John Galvin, Supreme Commander of NATO in Europe and the first to visit Spain, where he arrived on 6 April ‘to listen and to learn’. Inevitably, the question of Spain's contribution to NATO arose in connection with the visit, and as usual this involved consideration of the role of Gibraltar in NATO. Britain's informal reaction to Spain's position, which Spain had made clear in January and which rejected any Spanish coordination with the GIBMED Command, was that any activities in Gibraltar involving Spanish forces would need to be coordinated from the Allied Forces Southern Europe Command (AFSOUTH) in Naples. General Galvin let it be known that if Spain found this solution acceptable, NATO would support it. Here, too, there was a clear attempt on all sides to try to ensure that the Gibraltar issue did not impede the progress of good relations between Spain and its partners.