12 point stall
Ken
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As talks stall: 12-P0INT AIRPORT SCENARIO
A brief statement issued at the end of the tripartite talks said that
"almost all the outstanding issues" have been resolved. The UK
representative Anthony Smith disappeared from the hotel in London where the
talks had taken place. The Spanish representative Jose Pons simply said that
"good progress" had been made. The chief minister Peter Caruana said that if
a ministerial meeting was to take place before the end of the month, there
are just a few days "to resolve all those outstanding issues."
Contradictions and confusion emerges from the little that has been said.
Certainly nothing has been formally agreed and more technical talks are
foreseen before ministers meet. So, what is going on? It is obvious that a
deal over the airport stands in the way.
THE AIRPORT SCENARIO
Available information points at the following scenario:
1. There will be a single terminal on the Gibraltar side of the frontier.
2. The terminal will have an access point for Gibraltar traffic, and another
access point to and from Spain.
3. The preferred option by the Spanish Government is that members of Spam's
National Police and Guardia Civil should be based inside the Gibraltar
terminal.
4. If this is not possible, the Spanish Government wants passengers
disembarking at the airport on their way to Spain to do so as if they were
disembarking on Spanish or Schengen territory, with Gibraltar's immigration,
customs etc not exercising any controls over those passangers.
5. Flights from Spanish airports to Gibraltar should be treated as Spanish
National Flights and not as International Flights.
6. At talks held in Portugal a year ago, Mr Caruana spoke of linking the
Gibraltar terminal to a 'building' on the Spanish side, which he did not
call a terminal.
7. The Gibraltar Government agrees to facilitate practical access to the
Gibraltar terminal for passengers to and from Spain, to avoid the current
situation of passengers carrying their trolleys etc to and from the
frontier.
8. In September last year, the Spanish spokesman Rafael Estrella said that
retaining the present Gibraltar terminal "does not have many supporters
among the negotiators in the tripartite talks" and spoke of the terminal
being moved against the frontier fence "to avoid users of the airport having
to walk on disputed land."
9. The Spanish Government says that the isthmus on which the airfield is
built is Spanish sovereign territory.
10. The Spanish Government does not wish to accept Gibraltar controls in the
Gibraltar terminal as they are viewing the matter politically and in defence
of their separate claim to the isthmus, over which they do not recognise
British sovereignty.
11. After the tripartite talks in Majorca last October, it was reported that
Spain wanted joint use of the airport's installations.
12. In a sudden and totally unexpected statement later that month, Mr
Caruana said: "There has got to be concessions to Spain." In this context,
he spoke of giving Spanish interests a shareholding or role in Terminal
Management Ltd, the Gibraltar company on contract to the Government to run
the air terminal.
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Ends
K
Ken
"Ken" <k...@k1at.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:e8uf4...@news3.newsguy.com...
I understand why PC doesn't just abandon the tripartite talks. With
attitudes such as our neighbours to the north display (points 3, 4, 5, 9,
10, 11) they show that frnakly nothing of substance has changed over the
last 60 years.
Ken