The UN Fourth Committee has adopted a new draft Consensus Resolution on Gibraltar for consideration by the General Assembly later this year.

The new draft, while not incorporating all the changes sought by the Gibraltar Government, represents the first significant movement and progress in the right direction. Regrettably, the resolution continues to recall the bilateral Brussels Declaration and continues to invoke “the spirit of that statement”. On the other hand the references to the Brussels Declaration have been both toned down and diluted. They have been toned down by the deletion from this year’s Resolution of text quoted from the Brussels Declaration itself. It will be recalled that all previous resolutions have recited the following text from the Brussels Declaration: -

“The establishment of a negotiating process aimed at overcoming all the differences between them over Gibraltar and at promoting co-operation on a mutually beneficial basis on economic, cultural, touristic, aviation, military and environmental matters. Both sides accept that the issues of sovereignty will be discussed in the process. The British Government will fully maintain its commitment to honour the wishes of the people of Gibraltar as set out in the preamble of the 1969 Constitution”.

The references to the bilateral Brussels Process have also been diluted by the inclusion of references to the statements and tripartite agreement establishing the new trilateral dialogue process, and welcoming its creation separate from the Brussels Process.

There is also a new reference in the resolution to “applicable principles” (in addition to the usual references to relevant resolutions and the spirit of the Charter) in relation to the factors to be taken into account.

Commenting on the new text of the Consensus Resolution Chief Minister Peter Caruana said: -

“For several years I have been urging the United Nations to modify the Annual Consensus Resolution to abandon the unacceptable and ineffective focus on bilateralism between the UK and Spain. In my speech to the Fourth Committee earlier this month, I again urged them to eliminate references to bilateral negotiations under the Brussels Declaration and that, if they could not, this year, achieve consensus on that, they should at least modify the Resolution by including a full reference to the new Tripartite Process of Dialogue, and also tone down the references to the defunct Bilateral Brussels Process by eliminating the pointless and unnecessary quotations from the text of the Brussels Declaration in the Consensus Resolution. The new Consensus Resolution does these two things, and, to that extent represents a welcome and considerable step in the right direction.

Whilst these changes to the UN Resolution are gratifying to the Government after years of unsuccessful attempts, there is still further to go in achieving a realistic and sensible resolution. Government will continue to press for this in future addresses to the United Nations.”