Caruana Says Gibraltar's Economy Healthy Despite Recent Events

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

22 October 2002

Speaking at the annual 'State of the Nation' dinner held by the Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, Chief Minister Peter Caruana explained that the jurisdiction's economy remains buoyant, despite the various political and international challenges faced recently.

In addition to pressure exerted by the United Kingdom and Spain with regard to joint sovereignty, the Rock also learned last week that its proposed corporate tax reforms are to face an investigation by the European Commission on the grounds that they constitute unfair State aid to 'a part of the UK'.

Speaking to the House of Assembly following the release of an EC press release on the issue, Mr Caruana observed that consideration of the merits of the Gibraltar tax proposals was one thing, but that the questioning of whether Gibraltar is entitled to have a different tax system to the rest of the UK at all was totally unexpected.

Given the proximity of this announcement to the jurisdiction's forthcoming - domestically organised - referendum on the Anglo-Spanish sovereignty proposals, however, suspicions have been expressed in the Gibraltarian media that it is the Spanish authorities who were primarily responsible for this latest spanner in the works.

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