Sir Joe Bossano told Parliament the UK\/EU treaty for Gibraltar was a necessary and \u201cremarkable achievement\u201d after Brexit, rejecting claims that the agreement handed Spain levers of control in Gibraltar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Minister for Inward Investment said Gibraltar had secured arrangements that the UK could not have obtained for Gibraltar in the wider Brexit negotiations, describing the current position as the result of Spain having pushed Gibraltar out of the UK\u2019s transition arrangements in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sir Joe said Gibraltar was \u201cunique\u201d and could not expect \u201cstandard\u201d solutions, warning against judging the treaty against ideal outcomes rather than what was achievable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He dismissed concerns about \u201cboots on the ground\u201d, highlighting provisions that allow Spanish officials to operate a shared facility as part of a reciprocal arrangement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said the arrangement meant Spain was recognising it could not operate in the area without Gibraltar\u2019s agreement and a matching right for Gibraltar officials on the Spanish side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sir Joe also addressed the wider question of sovereignty, telling MPs there was nothing in the treaty that advanced Spanish claims.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not intended to put us on a road which finishes with us being Spanish or Gibraltar becoming part of Spain,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If the treaty did that, he would not support it, he said, adding: \u201cIf it was there, I would rather leave politics\u2026 than say yes to this.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sir Joe said Gibraltar could not assume the new arrangements would last indefinitely, noting that a future change of government in Spain could bring pressure to revisit or end the deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Against that uncertainty, he argued Gibraltar had to remain cautious about over-dependence and prepare for further disruption, including changes in technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said Gibraltar needed to keep \u201creinventing ourselves\u201d and could not assume that any model that worked now would work forever.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sir Joe warned that rejecting pragmatic compromises in the negotiations risked a \u2018no deal\u2019 outcome that would result in the border \u201ceffectively closing\u201d and would put key sectors such as gaming at risk.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In that scenario, he argued, Gibraltar face the return of a hard border and the loss of \u201cthousands of jobs\u201d, a \u201cworst-case scenario\u201d that would inevitably undermine the stability and certainty needed for economic prosperity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sir Joe again criticised the Leader of the Opposition, Keith Azopardi, over the GSD\u2019s position of backing the motion while attacking the treaty\u2019s content.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said supporting ratification while claiming it breached Gibraltar\u2019s red lines sent \u201ca bad message\u201d and he expressed regret that the Opposition framed its support in terms of profound reservations about protections he insisted were in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they genuinely believe what they say then it’s incomprehensible, because it defies logic,\u201d Sir Joe said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He later added: \u201cMy vote would be the worst-case scenario rather than giving concessions to Spain.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Azopardi had earlier countered that the Government was \u201cdancing on a pinhead\u201d because its objection from the outset had always been about the \u201csheer presence\u201d of Spanish officials conducting Schengen checks in Gibraltar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t about where they were or whether they were wearing a uniform.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was about the principle that they were Spaniards doing the check in Gibraltar.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Joe Bossano told Parliament the UK\/EU treaty for Gibraltar was a necessary and \u201cremarkable achievement\u201d after Brexit,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-804493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116173693989806730","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}