Feb 19 - Government Says Margallo Needs To Understand That "A Veto Is A Veto. No Means No"
The Government has said that members of the public who had an opportunity to hear the statements of Sñr Margallo today at the joint press conference with Foreign Secretary Hammomd “will have been as disappointed as ever to have heard him repeat, during the course of the joint press conference in question, the same lies, defamation and nonsense about all matters which are relevant.”
Statements from Sñr Margallo about the frontier, the airport, environmental issues etc, says Number Six, are all as misconceived as the statements from him in relation to other matters last week in respect of the Instituto Cervantes.
Those statements, as the Government said last week, “speak for themselves and are a better reflection of and on Sñr Margallo than anything that Government might say.”
As to one particular aspect, Sñr Margallo's repeated insistence that there may be an imminent chance of a return to Brussels talks, Government says it considers that it is appropriate to set out the position again to ensure that “no-one might fall for the Spanish Foreign Minister's rhetoric - although they should have learnt by now that, in relation to Gibraltar, everything he has predicted would happen in the past three years has not actually come to pass.”
The reality of the position, says the Government, is that the double lock agreed with the British Government, supported by all parties in the British Parliament, give a veto to the people of Gibraltar on the restart of those talks.
“The Government, the Parliament and the people of Gibraltar are all agreed. We will never agree to the resumption of such talks.
“We exercise that veto now and we will continue to do so forever. The double lock gives us that veto in this respect,” said Number Six.
Commenting on the subject, the Chief Minister said: "The Spanish foreign minister needs to start to understand that we hold the veto under the double lock. That veto is not going to be lifted, whatever pressure he may be seeking to apply at the frontier. No means no and we are not going to be blackmailed into changing our collective minds as a people. Today, after the talks and smiles in Madrid, there are lengthy queues at the frontier affecting principally hard working people who have to cross the frontier to work. That means that there will NOT be bilateral negotiations on the basis of the Brussels process shortly. It’s not going to happen this week, this month, this year or next or the one after that. The sooner that is understood, not just by the Minister, but also by those who slavishly report what he says might happen without question, the sooner we can get on to matters where we might make real progress for the benefit of the people who live on both sides of the frontier."
