MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gibraltar calls on opposition to forget about C24, ‘they will never de-colonize’

CM Peter Caruana: ”Our decolonisation is a factual reality”

The Gibraltar Government called this week on the Opposition “to abandon attendance at the Committee of 24 and support Chief Minister Peter Caruana at the United Nations in October.”

According to the Government the C24 will never decolonise Gibraltar by its criteria although “decolonisation in the relevant sense has already occurred.” The Government said that Mr Picardo should join Mr Caruana at the UN “in support of a single speech in relation to sovereignty”.

“The Government calls on the GSLP Opposition to join the Government in abandoning attendance at the Committee of 24 which deals with decolonisation. To argue that decolonisation only occurs if it is granted by the Committee of 24 is to condemn Gibraltar never to be decolonised. There is no point asking them to do it - they never will”, said a Gibraltar government spokesperson.

”Our decolonisation is a factual reality (regardless of the Committee of 24's inactivity) by virtue of our powers of self Government and self legislation, our modern non-colonial and consensual Constitutional relationship with Britain (accepted by Gibraltarians in an act of self determination) and because Britain declares the relationship not to be colonial in nature. Decolonisation in the relevant sense has already occurred.

“The Committee of 24 cannot detract from these obvious realities. We are not 'consenting colonials' as Spain has told Mr Picardo at C24, but consenting political partners with the UK, in a modern non-colonial relationship with the UK underpinned by our chosen British Sovereignty.

”We will never get more than that in the Committee of 24. For the Government, Gibraltar is no longer in a colonial situation viz a viz the UK and there is therefore no need to go to C24 to ask for decolonisation.

”On the other hand, the Chief Minister continues to go in October each year to the Fourth Committee at the UN because that Committee deals with Sovereignty (not just decolonisation), and it is necessary to continue to go to the UN to rebut Spain's unsustainable and misconceived sovereignty arguments. Sovereignty and Decolonisation are very different things”.

Finally ”Mr Picardo should join the Chief Minister at the UN in October in support of a single speech in relation to sovereignty”.