Spain has told the United Nations Committee of 24 (C24) that despite the “impasse afflicting the Brussels process”, Madrid's goodwill allows regional co-operation with Gibraltar and UK to continue under the Tripartite Forum.
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.
Spain's dealings with Gibraltar have the overriding objective of recovering sovereignty over the Rock, Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jiménez told parliament in Madrid this week.
Gibraltar Government is likely to have fuel services, including sullage plants of the type that caught fire last Tuesday and injured welders and cruise passengers, moved away from their current location.
Gibraltar Opposition Leader Fabian Picardo will head for New York later this month to address the United Nations Committee of 24 as part of the opposition GSLP/Liberal policy of continuing to ask the C24 to de-list British Overseas Territory and formally close the decolonisation process.
An oil storage tank exploded in the port of Gibraltar Tuesday afternoon around 3.30pm, just metres from where a cruise ship Independence of the Seas was berthed. Two people who were carrying out welding work on the tank were injured in the blast. One of them, a 40-year old Spanish national from La Linea, suffered serious, extensive and life threatening burns.
Gibraltar Government has taken the argument for Gibraltar and its finance centre to the toughest audience in Spain - the ABC newspaper readers.
Gibraltar’s opposition has signalled unease with the prospect of the conservative PP forming a government in Spain in the near future. In a statement analysing the municipal results the Opposition says that Gibraltarians will feel “extremely nervous” about the prospect of the PP in power.
British Labour MP Jim Dobbin is the new chairman of the All Party Gibraltar Group in the Commons. Mr Dobbin, elected at a meeting of the group Monday, takes on the position held by Eleanor Laing MP who resigned to take on the role of the Coalition Government’s special Gibraltar envoy with the MOD.
British Foreign Minister William Hague raised the UK’s concerns over Spanish incursions into Gibraltar waters during a meeting with his Spanish counterpart last February, according to a response to a question in the House of Lords.