May 04 - Feetham Comments “Provide Ammunition To Partido Popular In Brussels” – Government
The Government says that two Partido Popular MEPs have tabled a question in the European Parliament which makes use of the arguments against the new power station put in public by the Leader of the Opposition Daniel Feetham. The question (E-004901-15) even mentions him by name.
The Government says it takes a very serious view of the fact that what it describes as “irresponsible and ill-founded comments” made by the Opposition have been now been used as ammunition against Gibraltar.
The two PP MEPs, Luis de Grandes Pascual and Francisco Jose Millan Mon refer to reports in the Gibraltar press where “the leader of the main opposition party in the colony (the Gibraltar Social Democrats), Mr Daniel Feetham” announced that he was against the construction of the new power station on the grounds of public safety. It goes on to assert that Mr Feetham “recently drew attention to the risk of explosion of the new thermo-electric power plant which the local authorities of Gibraltar are building.” It goes on to ask the European Commission whether they have received detailed information about this project and whether the Commission has assessed the risk to safety.
The Government says it is already fighting Gibraltar’s corner in the European Union on enough issues “without having Mr Feetham’s baseless scaremongering adding to them further.”
The Partido Popular question also refers to the claim that Mr Feetham has made that he has consulted experts in power generation and on the environment before coming to his view. The Government notes that it “clearly does not say that the Opposition has refused to name their experts even when confronted face to face on television and urged to do so.”
The Government says it has already explained to the Opposition time and again that their concerns are “groundless” adding that the Opposition has “persisted in stirring up the matter purely and simply for local political reasons.” Number Six says that the GSD’s “irresponsible and self-serving comments” have now been picked up by the Partido Popular and turned against Gibraltar.
Commenting on the matter, the Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said:
“In a democratic society everyone is free to express whatever view they wish on any matter, and the Government will defend that right. However, persons who are elected to Parliament should behave in a more statesmanlike manner and should have a notion of the wider political interests of Gibraltar against which to balance what they want to say.
“It is a very sorry state of affairs that, in his eagerness to score cheap political points, Mr Feetham should have shot both himself and Gibraltar in the foot with his ill-judged and ill-informed comments.”
{fcomment}
