Panorama asks: What is going on? What is THE TRUTH?
Following the refusal by the Spanish authorities to allow the Monarch airliner to fly on from Malaga to Gibraltar last week, people are asking: What is going on? Who has got it wrong? What is the truth?
With Gibraltar shocked by the decision not to allow the diverted aircraft to fly direct to Gibraltar, the Spanish foreign ministry and its director for Europe, José Pons, said that there has been no change in Spain’s policy on this issue, that the air restriction remains and that requests to allow diverted flights to carry on to Gibraltar are considered on a case by case basis.
What has led to this latest confusion? Here are the facts:
The Facts
October 2004: The British and Spanish foreign ministers agreed on a new tripartite talks forum for Gibraltar, listing several measures for cooperation such as “to allow the inclusion of Spanish airports as alternative airports in the flight plans whose final destination is the airport of Gibraltar,”
This reference to diverted flights came in the context of an ‘ Annex which set out several cooperation measures to facilitate the start of the work of the forum, namely:
December 2004: When a simultaneous statement was issued in London, Madrid and Gibraltar setting out the modalities to the tripartite forum, the chief minister Peter Caruana said that the lifting of restrictions on flights diverting to Spain had now been implemented.
September 2005: When an airliner diverted to Malaga was allowed to fly on to Gibraltar this was described by Mr Caruana as “excellent news”. This was at the time of the constitutional talks on 16 September. He told GBC:
“Well, I think it is excellent news. As you know that is in the context of the trilateral process of dialogue. This was included in one of two unilateral measures that the Spanish Government agreed to lift restrictions on.”
He went on:
“And I said at the time that the Spanish lifting of the restriction extended also to flights to aeroplanes, to diverted aeroplanes that then went on to Gibraltar from Malaga… The restriction has now obviously been lifted… diverted flights can fly from Malaga and other Spanish airports to Gibraltar.”
When told that PSOE spokesman Rafael Estrella had said that this was one-off, Mr Caruana replied:
“Well, Rafael Estrella is not the Spanish Government as far as I am aware. The Spanish Government have written confirming the nature and extent of the lifting of the restrictions and it extends to what happened yesterday.”
October2005: Last week a diverted flight was not allowed by the Spanish authorities to fly on to Gibraltar from Malaga. It was said by Madrid that this was policy and that ‘normal’ procedures had been followed.
The removal of the air restriction, which everyone in Gibraltar had thought had been removed a year ago, was now being placed in the context of an airport deal being concluded.
People are saying that if those involved in the trilateral talks cannot agree on what was stated in a few lines, how long would it be before there were different interpretations over an elaborate airport deal?
For the moment, the question is this: What is going on?
From Panorama, Gibraltar’s Online Daily Newspaper
Related Articles and Links:
Statement by The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Baroness Symons, announcing a Joint Statement on the establishment of a new forum for dialogue on Gibraltar - the now so called ‘Tripartite Talks’ - dated 28th October 2004
31 October 2005 - Pons attacks nationalism and the dynamics of fear
27 October 2005 - Madrid pressed to explain return to Tangier diversion
27 October 2005 - Spanish tripartite talks negotiator makes Campo move
27 October 2005 - Feetham challenges Bossano over airport
20 October 2005 - Sovereignty status quo will be unaltered by Ariport deal
15 October 2005 - ‘Concessions’ for Airport deal, but not on any fundamentals - Caruana
14 October 2005 - They can talk until the cows come home, says Bossano
12 October 2005 - Tight lipped, but Gib-Spain-UK report ‘progress’
12 October 2005 - Getting there, but not there yet…
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