GIBRALTAR today Letters

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Secret library in Gibraltar

Dear Sir,

As a new resident in Gibraltar, I am mystified why the appropriate authority keeps secret the fact that a Public Library exists here.

I have never been able to find any signposting to it and when one does find it, there is no indication at the building that a library exists there. Can the reason be why I never see anyone there when I am that not many people know where it is or of its existence?

Most towns and cities are proud to publicise where their libraries are. Many provide “STORYTIME” activities for children in the school holidays. The sporting activities are well publicised and consequently well supported. Why no cultural activities? Have “STORYTIME” sessions been dismissed? There is plenty of evidence in the UK that young children in particular attend their libraries in droves. If it is a question of cost, there are some of us who are willing to volunteer freely to organise and run the sessions.

Oh! By the way the public library is in the John Mackintosh Hall if I am not revealing a state secret!

Yours sincerely,

Rex H. Vick

Reading between the lines

Dear Sirs, 

I was fortunately able to get

hold of a transcript of Sr. Piqué's press conference about the Brussels Process. It is fascinating to read between the limes of his answers.

First, the priority at the meeting was to provide each side with a "win". Spain gets to say that sovereignty will be discussed (even if the response is brief Anglo-Saxon), and we get the Matutes Process rejected. Diplomatically, of course, but I'm quite sure they are no longer with us.

The second item is that the Airport Agreement is dead, or scheduled to have its plug pulled quietly sometime soon. Of course, Sr. Pique couldn't really take home two defeats, so this will probably be announced (in the usual meaningless politikspeak) when the formal talks start in the autumn.

However, it is salutary to take a close look at this. The goad for action here is the "Open Skies" package, and Spain's veto of it. The EU is more correctly called "Spain's problem with Gibraltar" and have threatened to go ahead and impose a solution. Such a solution, I'm sure, would be "fair and equitable", words which are taboo in Spain's policy on Gibraltar. The Spanish government would throw its mandatory wobbly, and refuse to implement its end (no surprises there) on the grounds that it interfered with their God-given right to discriminate against Gibraltar. There would follow the mandatory 10 years wait for the EU Commission to prosecute, plus another 10+ years for Spain to actually fall al lime (as with the now-legal, but nonetheless still absent ferry to Algeceiras).

The alternative is that the Anglo-Spanish working groups which were already tasked with this problem (hence Sr. Piqué's mention of them) come up with a new Airport Agreement. The danger here is that Mr. Caruana will be presented with a fait accompli and a pen when (if?) he attends the Brussels talks. This is another document that must be gone through with a very fine legal toothcomb before we commit to it. We must also make sure that the price that Spain pays is the removal at least, of all air restrictions. Early Gibraltarian participation al this working group is almost certainly essential if the talks are to work, and produce the result, which has already been preordained. We have am advantage, though, al that Sr. Piqué is al need of a few victories, bearing in mind that he may well end up facing the same charges he has regularly flung at us. So we may be able to get more than just the minimum concessions.

This result will probably be called am "updated" Airport Agreement, even if it does not incorporate a single word of the original. Sr. Pique will be able to claim a victory for the citizens of the Campo area, and be able to lift the air restrictions, which will be our victory. Sovereignty will not, of necessity, be part of the deal. But at least it will achieve what should be our goal for the Brussels Process, which can only be to get the restrictions removed, even if it galls us somewhat that the Spanish government are allowed to save face in the process. Kicking them al the teeth may be a natural reaction to what they do to us, but it hasn't got them anywhere. In the end, the price of our rights may be that we have to forget any notions of revenge. While the Spanish government has wronged us seriously and repeatedly, insisting that they are humiliated al the process of restoring our rights is not going to get our rights restored. But I think the Gibraltarian people are bigger than that. 

Yours, John Borda (Gibraltarian), St. Ives, Cambs. UK.

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