Chief Minister

Thank you Derek (Sir Derek Reffell) for your very kind words. It is no surprise to those of us that have known for some time that Baroness Hooper has volunteered to host, to sponsor this lunch. It is entirely consistent with her long track record of supporting Gibraltar, supporting our causes and demonstrating that she is one of Gibraltar's longest standing and most genuine friends and supporters, therefore whilst I join you in your expression of gratitude, from my point of view it is one of the many things for which are constantly having to express our gratitude.

It is also a great honour and pleasure for me to be here with you today, not just because it gives me an opportunity to express the Government's support for the support the friends give to us, but also because it enables me to record, although it's already been generously recorded by Derek, the fact that the Government of Gibraltar is genuinely concerned and interested by the whole question of our heritage. Now, that does not mean, and I would like to think that it is capable of being believed even if it flows from this mouth and therefore that of a politician, that the Government demonstrates that concern and that priority that it gives to Gibraltar's heritage. And we do it for several reasons not just because heritage is in itself important and must be preserved but also for selfish economic reasons because we see our heritage as a valuable part of our economic assets to be exploited in the development of our economy. And I'd like to think that it is recognisable that we put our money where our mouth is. There are millions and millions of pounds being spent on things which broadly speaking fall under the heritage umbrella, the Casemates Project has been referred to, two and a half million pounds of restoration of one of Gibraltar's most historical squares, and I am delighted to be able to put your mind at rest that there are no tourist shops anywhere near the old barracks, the whole of the barracks blocks on the ground will be restaurants and cafes for the al fresco culture which we want to generate in the square. But yet the Theatre Royal is an important project for us. It's important because it kills two heritage birds with one stone and not only does it recover one of the most historic theatre buildings in the Iberian peninsula, but it also gives us the opportunity to restore another aspect to Gibraltar's cultural heritage that the Government wants to restore and that is Gibraltar's tradition for a musical or performing arts culture, of which the Theatre Royal used to be one of the most important seats in the whole geographical region. That's why we attach importance to the project, as indeed we also do to the World War Two tunnels, which we wish to develop also for heritage and economic reasons. We know, however, that it's necessary for us, for the Government and we know that because you are responsible heritage lobbyists that you understand that Governments have wider agendas that they need to balance, conflicting interests, and that it is not always possible for the Government to make the decision that you would have wished it to make. There are examples of that that readily come to mind, for example there is the vexed issue of whether we should or should not demolish the old electricity generating station abutting on to the King's Bastion, there is the question of whether it is a wise or an unwise decision for the Government to domicile to locate a ministry in the City Wall. But I hope that whatever the differences that we might have we recognise that you are acting in the best interests of heritage and that we are acting in the best interests of heritage balanced with all the other interests that we need to take into account. You have mentioned Derek the UNESCO world heritage status bid and you rightly said that this is something that the Government and the Heritage Trust and everybody in Gibraltar who could be interested in these decisions are supporting and that is true, and that we are all very enthusiastic about it. I have however to report with regret but not with an excess of surprise that the Spanish Government has already registered its displeasure and has given notice that it has political objections to the inclusion by the United Kingdom of Gibraltar in its list which it regards as some degree of provocation, I think that that is a measure of the extent to which consequences of Spain's political aspirations concerning Gibraltar, pervades into other areas. Just before leaving heritage I do want to tell you that one of our biggest commitments to heritage programmed over a number of years are in the restoration, if you can call it that, of the upper town area. You spoke of the Moorish Castle and of course, as is right, and speaking about the Moorish Castle you know that the Government is supportive of the project of on the long term to relocate the prison and that the Moorish Castle can be dedicated as a purpose site. It's an expensive project, but the whole of the upper town of the old town of Gibraltar is itself a pearl of our heritage, and it's been allowed over many decades to degenerate into an area where really, social cases are sent to live and we are determined that that will be reversed, and we have allocated a very significant share of our available resources to recover that.

But of course our political aspirations and the achievements of my predecessors in political life in Gibraltar and the constitutional evolution that Gibraltar has already enjoyed also forms part of our heritage and it is in part of our heritage which is foremost on my list of those parts of our heritage which need to be protected. And our political heritage is based on three fundamental facets. The first is the right of the people of Gibraltar to decide their own future and when people query or challenge that proposition, put in that positive way, I say well fine, put it the other way and see how it stands. Anybody who negates the right of the people of Gibraltar to decide their own future are necessarily saying that others, other than the people of Gibraltar have the right to decide the future of the people of Gibraltar over and above their heads. It is a disreputable, untenable, completely bankrupt proposition, unsustainable amongst democrats in the European Community of the third millennium. Therefore we know that when we advocate our rights we don't have might, economic, political, still less military – especially now that we've lost our military governors, but certainly we have right and because we have right we know that time will give us the verdict that our case deserves. And our heritage is based also on the principal that as a colonial people we have a right to continuing constitutional evolution and that it is indefensible for our constitutional development to be arrested permanently simply because the United Kingdom does not wish to upset Spain. We don't wish to upset Spain either, after all we have to live even closer to them than the United Kingdom which is several thousand kilometres further away. But there are matters of principle for which even a diplomatic price must be paid, we are not suggesting that we should be provocative, we are not suggesting that we should be unsympathetic to the realities of political life, but we are not willing to surrender the principle of our rights simply so that others can lead a more cosy diplomatic co-existence in the European Community.

And the third pillar of our political heritage and it is a recent one admittedly, is this constant effort that we have to make to assert, protect and see that others uphold our European Union rights. It is an act of really indefensible disrepute that people should see to it rightly that Gibraltar complies with its European Community obligations, which is an expensive burdensome thing for a small territory and not invest the same degree of enthusiasm, commitment and obligation in ensuring that we as a quid pro quo are able to enjoy the benefits of that membership. And I have to report that that is today the position which Gibraltar sustains. We are required to honour our obligations and there is muchness of ambivalence, delay, looking of the other way, buck passing and all manner of prevarication when it comes to the harder business of making Spain and the European Commission for that matter, seeing to it that our European rights are protected and that other Member States' European obligation towards us are honoured and complied with. In this respect the Government of Gibraltar is not unreasonable, we have recently, on the 19^th April been able to signify our agreement, having spent three or four months negotiating them, to three agreements which we are delighted and we are even more delighted if they are acceptable to Spain as well as being acceptable to us. It is obvious that if an agreement is to work, it has to work for all the parties to it and those agreements relate to three issues. They relate to police co-operation, recognition of our identity cards and the much more wide issue of our competent authorities. Gibraltar has never been disinclined to co-operate with police in judicial affairs with Spain, the obstacles such as there have been in the past has been that given that Spain since 1969 when the United Kingdom Government gave us our Constitution, has refused to recognise that Constitution and any institutions established under it, she has always refused to recognise the existence of the police force in Gibraltar, the Royal Gibraltar Police or of the judiciary in Gibraltar because to do so would be to recognise the Constitution. As a result of that, requests for formal judicial assistance and police assistance would not be addressed to the Gibraltar authorities as required by the appropriate international treaty. And all this has been sold by Spain internationally, in order to tarnish Gibraltar's image, as Gibraltar refusing to co-operate – Gibraltar does not refuse to co-operate, Gibraltar cannot co-operate because Spain refuses to recognise our authorities. That matter has very happily now been resolved and an agreement has been signed relating to police co-operation which will include the establishment of Liaison Officers directly from the Royal Gibraltar Police and the Spanish Police, the Guardia Civil, they will establish direct means of communications, secure and unsecure, telefaxes, telex, direct telephone lines and there is now a formal structure for the police co-operation between the police in Gibraltar and the police of Spain which implicitly, explicitly recognises the existence of the Royal Gibraltar Police and Spain should never have maintained the position that she had done hitherto. Spain had also refused to recognise the identity cards as valid travel documents. Gibraltar has issued identity cards for many years even though the United Kingdom never has. When the European Community decided that it was a good idea that we issue our identity cards under a common format, Gibraltar changed its identity cards to the EU format. When even later the Commission said that it would be a good idea if we could all travel on our identity cards instead of passport, we said fine but when we went to hand over our identity cards at the border, Spain refused to accept them. That issue which was also one about to come before the courts has been resolved. The ID cards will continue to be issued by the Government of Gibraltar as they have always been issued. They will continue to serve the same purpose as they have always served and Spain has agreed, Spain and all the other Member States have agreed, that they will be recognised as valid travel documents. But by far the most significant of the three agreements is the one relating to competent authorities. Now, I have explained to you that Spain has always refused to recognise our Constitution and any of the authorities established by it including obviously the Government of Gibraltar, but not only the Government of Gibraltar but also the Police, the courts, etc. This has given rise to an enormous problem in respect of the implementation in Gibraltar of EU directives and EU regulations, so for example if there was an EU Directive relating to customs co-operation, the question always arose, well who is going to administer this, because if it's the Gibraltar Customs – "we, Spain, are going to veto it because we do not think Gibraltar has the right to participate in Europe acting by her own Constitutional competent authorities". Of course the United Kingdom supported it, indeed at our insistence but also the matter of their own conviction, were taken in view of Gibraltar's Constitution was an act of English law that established authorities in Gibraltar, that Gibraltar was not administratively part of the United Kingdom and could not be regarded as administratively part of the United Kingdom for EU purposes. That matter which was holding up dozens and dozens of EU measures for the whole of the Community. The European Community has not had a directive on take-overs and mergers for example, for the past three years because Spain blocked it for fear that Gibraltar would set up its own stock exchange and then Spain would have to deal directly with Gibraltar. All those issues affect all areas of European Community business, and therefore it is of great significance in unblocking the Gibraltar factor from the European Commission. This problem has been dissolved on the basis that Spain has agreed that she will raise no further obstacle to the recognition of Gibraltar's competent authorities who will act exclusively, who will make the decisions, who will issue the documents who will continue to implement in Gibraltar all EU directives and obligations, whose acts and decisions will be recognised by the rest of the European Community when the acts of the authorities of one country have a direct effect in another Member State, which is increasingly the case in single market in the European Community. We in turn, in order to recognise the fact, that Gibraltar is not a Member State in its own right – in other words that we are not the sixteenth Member State but rather part of the European Union by virtue of the membership of that community of the United Kingdom, we for our part recognise that when we need to send a formal communication, a formal written communication to another Member State we will not do so directly and therefore Spain need not worry that we are holding ourselves up as if we were a separate Member State, but rather, we will physically channel our communications, our bit of paper, through the United Kingdom Foreign Office, an arrangement which not unexpectedly is commonly known as the "Post-Box" arrangement. This had resulted in the unblocking and the elimination of issues that had been very polemic for a very long time and as we stand there is an expectation as were the fact that has been possible for the first time in three hundred years for all three Governments to signify their agreement to the same agreement of the same issue, without any one of them having had to surrender or having had to prejudice their fundamental position or rather their positions on fundamental issues, there is naturally an expectation as to whether this signifies some new impetus whether this suggests that these agreements are the beginning of a process that may take us further into other areas. It remains to be seen, the Government of Gibraltar, at least since we have been in office, has made it very clear, publicly its position that we are interested in engaging Spain in a process of dialogue, we are not willing, needless to say, to compromise or to concede our British sovereignty, but the prospect of dialogue with Spain, even dialogue in which they can raise the issue of sovereignty is really disingenuous to advocate dialogue, as some do in Gibraltar, disingenuously to advocate dialogue with Spain on condition that they are not going to raise the only issue that everyone knows is the only one that interests Spain provided, however, Spain understands that as she is free to raise the issue of sovereignty we are free to record and express our views and if we reject her overtures she cannot in the democratic Europe in which we now live, punish Gibraltar for the choices that we make by taking restrictive measures against us. If Spain want to make political offers of any flavour to the people of Gibraltar, she is of course perfectly free to do so, so long as she also accepts the obligation to abide by and respect all the democratic ramifications respecting the democratically and freely expressed will of the people of Gibraltar in relation to their future. Therefore for the Government of Gibraltar we are perfectly confident and content to enter into dialogue with Spain. For us dialogue with Spain provided it is based on a proper acceptance of democratic parameters is not a threat or a challenge, it is something that we enter with the fullest of confidence. We would be very happy to engage Spain in a more constructive relationship, we would be very happy to fence mend and bridge build and co-operate in some matters as we are able to co-operate on. What we are not willing to do is to barter our sovereignty for the privilege of those good relations and of those ordinary European neighbourly relations. And therefore, whether these agreements result in anything else it's really in the hands of Spain. If Spain democratises her management of the Gibraltar issue, her attitude in the Gibraltar issue, as she has democratised every other aspect of her political scene internationally and domestically, then accepting those democratic principles and those democratic ground rules, there is much scope for constructive engagement leaving to one side the question of sovereignty which other generations would have to decide for themselves. What is evident is that the present generation and any generation that I can see on the horizon are not going to be willing to exchange their British sovereignty for Spanish sovereignty. And the only condition that we place on dialogue with Spain is not the subject matters that Spain is free to raise, to raise as she pleases, the condition that we apply, the only condition is that we should be present at such dialogue, speaking for ourselves, representing ourselves and with our own voice. It is no longer true, it is no longer the case that the interests of the United Kingdom represented by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office coincide with the interests of Gibraltar, that is simply not the case – it is self evidently not the case and therefore, provided that we are able to participate in dialogue in that way, we are game for any process of dialogue in which Spain is happy to engage us.

And why, apart from the fact that there is no longer a coincidence in the interests between those of UK and those of Gibraltar do we want to be there in our own right? Well because if we are not there in our own right, by which I don't mean that we go there as a third sovereign delegation, we are obviously not a third sovereign state, but that doesn't mean that we can't have our own voice in a properly structured process of dialogue. And the reasoning that for Gibraltar to go along to dialogue with Spain, tagging along to what is in effect a United Kingdom delegation is simply to accommodate, to endorse and to ratify that principle which lies at the root of the whole Spanish case in relation to Gibraltar which is that this is a bilateral problem between the UK and Spain, that this is a piece of Spanish territory occupied by the United Kingdom and that the people of Gibraltar actually have no rights in or in relation to that territory and therefore for Gibraltar to fall into line with a bilateral process of dialogue between Madrid and London, which Madrid says is about negotiating the hand over by the United Kingdom of Gibraltar's sovereignty to Spain, if we participate in a process of dialogue so structured it would simply be an endorsement by us of the fact that this is that the Spanish focus, the Spanish analysis of the bilateralism and the reasons for it are correct. What we are saying to the United Kingdom and to the Spanish Government is we want to engage you in dialogue and if it is not beyond the wit of reasonably intelligent democrats in this day and age to structure a process of dialogue which saves our interests and saves Spain's interests and saves the United Kingdom's interest. What we will not do is go along with the ordained bilateral process of dialogue because Spain thinks it suits her and the United Kingdom isn't interested to invest in the diplomatic effort required to put a new one in its place. We believe that is a perfectly reasonable position which no one that is genuinely interested in exploring progress, in engaging in dialogue, in searching for solutions could possibly think is too high a price for the fruits that might flow from such a process.