Gibraltar To Ask Britain For Constitutional Change This Year

Panorama

10 January 2001

This story is reproduced by kind permission of Panorama at http://www.panorama.gi

The Gibraltar chief minister Peter Caruana has confirmed Government plans to try and save the finance centre in the wake of international threats. In his New Year message, he said: "The Finance Centre continues to grow and prosper, despite the threats and challenges that all Offshore Finance Centres are now facing from international organisations like the OECD, G7, the EU and others."

He added:"No one in Gibraltar, whether they work directly in the Finance Centre or not should underestimate how important the Finance Centre is to the economic, and therefore to the social and political prosperity, and indeed survival, of Gibraltar." Probably as many as 5000 jobs depend, directly or indirectly, on the Finance Centre, he said. The Finance Centre is an important mainstay of the private sector and therefore of the economy.

And he then insisted on his plans to try and save the finance centre. "In order to protect the Finance Centre from the consequences of the international initiatives that I have referred to, Government will be obliged to take certain measures, especially changes to our tax system, to enable the Finance Centre to continue to flourish and thus sustain the direct and indirect employment that it currently provides. The objectives of the Government are "to develop a viable and sustainable economy and to mintain a climate which ensures its contuning prosperity into the future."

He saw some sectors of the retail trade continuing to suffer the consequences of what he termed "the srong Pound." It made many of Gibraltar's shops uncompetitive for local and visiting shoppers. However, there were signs, at long last, "that the Euro may be strengtheneing" and if this continues "it will offer some relief to those local businesses affected."

Peter Caruana, chief minister of Gibraltar, has accused Spanish politicians of making political capital out of the problems facing the stricken British nuclear submarine HMS Tireless, which has been at Gibraltar since last May with a leak in its water coolant system. "We should be wary of some Spansh politicians who use the Tireless for political purposes beyond safety concerns, " he said. "One said last week that they sought Tireless' removal not on safety grounds but for reasons of sovereignty."

By evoking the political differences with Spain, always an emotional issue here, Mr Caruana appeared to be opening the way for his Government to continue with its policy of not opposing the repairs to Tireless - as the Spanish dimension tends to cloud all other considerations in Gibraltar.

This concept was strengthened, said sources, when he added that "our natural instinct is to help the UK if this can be done without undue risk to public health and safety." He was thus viewing the nuclear risk factor from a political perspective within the context of Anglo-Spanish relations and their impact on Gibraltar.

The sensitive risk issue was also being qualified further - "undue risk" were his words. While he reiterated that "we will not hesitate to oppose and prevent the works being carried out here if our experts advise us that the risks exceed those posed by a routine recreational nuclear submarine visit", it is thought his experts are unlikely to draw such a conclusion given that what the experts are considering is simply whether or not the actual repair work poses a safety risk. For as long as the MOD can show that they are following established practices, it will be difficult for the experts to oppose the work procedure.

He did not mention that while routine submarine visits are curtailed to not more than a few days by Ministry of Defence regulations, precisely to reduce the risk factor when nuclear submarines dock in ports, the Tireless has now been in Gibraltar for close on eight months which heightens the potential risk factor, even if the reactor is reportedly shut down.

It has now been confirmed without a shadow of doubt that Gibraltar will be formally asking Britain for changes to its constitution. This will happen after the joint committee of the House of Assembly, which is considering such changes, presents its report later this year. The commitee has now met on several occasions, and unless some local differences unexpectedly flare up, a consensus view is certain to emerge.

It is well known that the Labour/Liberal alliance want Gibraltar to be decolonised and removed from the UN list of colonies. The Government's preferred position is one of seeking as much self-govenment as possible, reducing and removing powers from UK-appointed officials, including the Governor.

It is equally obvious that the British Government is advising against significant change to avoid a negative reaction from Madrid, which is forever hypersensitive on Gibraltar developing its separate identity as becomes manifest by its unrelenting opposition to Gibraltar even joining international sporting bodies.

Said Mr Caruana: "It is not reasonable for anyone to expect Gibraltar to remain permanently static in terms of our constitutional and political evolution in the face of anachronistic intransigence on the part of those with historical ambitions over our homeland." That was a clear reference to Spain and an equally clear rejection of its sovereignty claim. Speaking on the wider issue of EU rights, he further took the view that the Gibraltar Government stands ready to be reasonable and pactical, but "so long as Gibraltar is not expected to compromise our fundamental and established rights and interests."

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