Dec 16 - Feetham Returns After Speeches And Debates Across Spain
The Leader of the Opposition, Daniel Feetham, has returned from Valladolid where he participated in a debate on Gibraltar with PSOE MP and member of the PSOE Federal Executive Committee, Diego Lopez Garrido and Idelfonso Pastor Gonzalez an MP with the PP.
It concludes an intense two weeks where Mr. Feetham has been delivering speeches and participating in debates in Algeciras, Jerez, Cadiz and Valladolid. The GSD says that Mr. Feetham has been very well received at all the venues where he has been invited to speak and the GSD is very grateful to the organisers of these events.
Mr. Feetham continued with what the Opposition has described as the GSD’s “well-known and long standing position” that it is the duty of politicians on both sides of the frontier to try and “normalise relations” between Gibraltar and Spain through dialogue. Mr. Feetham emphasised the symbiotic relationship between Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar. Prior to this crisis the Gibraltar economy made a net contribution of nearly 200 million Euros to the economy of the Campo de Gibraltar. Gibraltar, of course, also employs thousands of Spanish workers. It is also those workers and the economy of the Campo that are suffering because of the measures put in place by the PP Government, particularly at the border.
Mr. Feetham said: “Gibraltar and Spain both have their red lines but in between those red lines, there is a significant political space in which we can deal with the issues that are poisoning the relationship between Gibraltar and Spain and also Spain and the United Kingdom. There is also much that can be achieved in terms of cooperation and agreements for the benefit of ordinary people. That is what politics is all about at the end of the day. I do not need to either compare Spain to North Korea or associate myself to the comments of Dennis Mathews at the UN comparing Spain’s actions towards Gibraltar to that of a terrorist state, to articulate that very simple message.
“Indeed, neither do I need to use that language to defend Gibraltar, for example, against accusations of being a fiscal paradise or a centre for the laundering of money. I prefer to use logic and reason in a calm and measured way by simply pointing out, for example, that the International Monetary Fund (“the IMF”), one of the most prestigious and independent organisations in the world has conducted a review of financial services in Gibraltar on a number of a occasions and given Gibraltar a higher score than most European jurisdictions. On the last occasion it did so, the IMF was headed by a Spaniard, Rodrigo Rato, who was himself a Spanish Politian and member of the PP! Likewise, at all these talks I also point out that Gibraltar was one of the first jurisdictions which implemented the Third Directive on Money Laundering and that if it had not done so, the United Kingdom Government would have been taken to the European Court of Justice by the EU Commission just as it did with Spain when she did not implement that Directive.
“I am glad that Mr. Picardo is now talking about dialogue and appears to have dampened down the tone of his discourse. However, just as we cannot see what he has achieved in nearly two years since he allowed the 1999 Agreement to be torn up on Facebook without having anything to take its place, only to now legislate to allow fishing with nets, he really should learn not to make ill advised and immature statements that serve no purpose other than pandering to a section of his own supporters.”
