Jul 20 - GSD Says Margallo “Doesn’t Seem To Get The Message”
The GSD has said that caretaker Spanish Foreign Minister Margallo “just doesn’t seem to get the message” adding that Gibraltar is never going to agree to joint sovereignty and “no amount of undemocratic pressure from the Spanish Government will change that.”
The GSD says it welcomes the robust statements by the new Foreign Secretary who has not only reiterated the double-lock sovereignty commitment to Gibraltar but confirmed that Gibraltar will be fully involved in the discussions on the UK’s future relationship with the EU. The Opposition says the British public would not forgive any betrayal of Gibraltar if those promises are broken and it has “every confidence that will not happen.”
The Leader of the Opposition Daniel Feetham said:
“These are self-serving statements on the part of Sr. Garcia-Margallo. Including Gibraltar in the negotiations between the EU and the UK may not be what he wants but it is what senior Ministers in the UK Government have promised Gibraltar and it, therefore, makes sense to the UK and Gibraltar. Nothing else matters.
“The problem with Sr. Garcia-Margallo is that he has not changed his belligerent tune in four years he has been at the helm of Spanish diplomacy and has achieved nothing for it.
“It certainly does nothing for the 10,000 Spanish nationals who cross the frontier every day to work in Gibraltar or the economy of the Campo to which Gibraltar is a significant net contributor.
“There is one part of his statement that we welcome and that is that his statement that his ‘foremost concern, as you would imagine ... are the Spanish workers that earn their living there’. Taken to its logical conclusion that must mean that Sr. Garcia-Margallo will not support restrictions at the border, because that will affect those very same workers. That expression of concern and its logical conclusion is one that Gibraltar should be consistently reminding the Spanish public”.
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