Details of the Spanish proposals are being leaked to the Spanish media as Spain mounts an offensive to get them accepted.
An outright rejection - which has already happened - would lead to Spain abandoning its "tolerant attitude" to the non-implementation by Gibraltar of EU directives. Spanish foreign minister Abel Matutes told Robin Cook at the London talks last Wednesday that a negative reception to his ideas or to any progress for Spain would lead to Madrid impeding what he termed "that the colony should live and prosper at Spain's expense and specially at the expense of the Campo de Gibraltar, which suffers the worst consequences from having a great free market, hardly controlled, in the middle of its own territory."
It shows why Campo mayors returned from their own meeting with Matutes expressing concern that a toughening of the Spanish attitude would seriously affect the Spanish people themselves - the thousands who work here, the many services provided by Spaniards and the large sums of money spent and invested by Gibraltarians in Spain.
The Spanish proposals were "cooly received" by Mr. Cook, the Spanish media confirms, while the Gibraltar Government has already rejected them as "completely unacceptable". The Spanish foreign ministry is even concerned that their proposals did not make much news in the UK press.
Mr. Matutes is again making charges about "illicit trafficking", pointing at drugs, tobacco and money laundering. The recent concern about the effects of EU tax harmonisation on the Gibraltar finance centre was used by Matutes to stress the need for transparency in such operations.
He told Cook that Spain would also act against "Gibraltarian manoeuvres" seeking a change to its colonial status. Spain would try to block Gibraltar having a voice in European institutions.
The 12-page Spanish document warns that Spain "will never accept" the wishes of "the authorities of Gibraltar" to change the Rock's status by retaining a theoretical sovereign link with the UK - even total integration - to circumvent the UN decolonisation mandate and, as a result, the Spanish wish for a bilaterally negotiated decolonisation.
The Spanish plan is to take anti-Gibraltar measures short of closing the frontier, although this has not been rejected by Matutes. Gibraltar passports, ID cards and driving licences are being mentioned as Spanish targets.
As part of their contradictory "carrot and stick" policy, the Spanish proposals say that a democratic country like Spain would not impose a solution on the inhabitants of Gibraltar by force. The document argues that the UK is hiding behind the concept of "the wishes of the Gibraltarians" to avoid negotiating the substance of the Gibraltar issue.
The Spanish think - as Matutes told Cook - that the preamble to the Constitution is no longer necessary as it was conceived to compensate for the fears of the Gibraltar population of becoming involved in a non-democratic Spanish regime.
Since the Spanish Government think they are giving Gibraltar something better than what it has, they cannot understand why the proposals are considered unacceptable.
"This House notes that in June 1996 it was decided that, in recognition of the enormous contribution made by Robert Peliza to the political affairs of Gibraltar, the Honorary Freedom of the City should be conferred upon him at an appropriate occasion in the future and considers that arrangements should now be made for this to take place in 1998".
After the previous Spanish foreign minister Fernando Moran made similar proposals in February 1984, it took the then GSLP government some time before the Foreign Office considered it convenient to do as requested.
A similar situation arises now. Since the Government has made public their request, it is an issue that will be questioned until it becomes known that the proposals have been "rejected outright."
The Foreign Office line tends to be that it is best not to say NO even if that is the reply.
However, it would be farcical if the coordinators of the Brussels process meet and carry on regardless when everybody knows the proposals are not wanted.
He makes references to an article appearing in a Spanish magazine about the Gibraltar identity as reflected in the National Day and the adoption of an anthem in 1995. The conflict has become trilateral.
Mr. Lopez Rodo says that the insertion of the Gibraltarians in the Anglo-Spanish dispute is nothing new and recalls what Lord Caradon told the UN General Assembly in December 1965 that there cannot be negotiations over sovereignty without the intervention of the Gibraltarians. This was later to be enshrined in the preamble to the Gibraltar Constitution, he writes in an article in the daily ABC.
What is new now, he adds, is the emergence of a Gibraltarian national identity.
Un palo le daba yo, if you know what I mean.
Que gracia, me quitaba el chapeo to you if I had one.
It's more capeo que chapeo. Nos llama every name under the Gibraltarian sun - somos smugglers, money launderers etc - but if we become Spanish we can carry on as we are, pero ya no somos smugglers, money launderers etc!
Como le ponemos al niño, como diria mi Juan. I must admit, querida Cynthia, que estas hoy a punto de caramelo.
De caramelo, no way, con el diet que me dio my aunt Elspeth, la que vive in England. Si me vieras, me estoy quedando como un esqueleto.
My dear, darte un walk por el Main Street, let's see si te veo. How is your Charlie?
Le ha dado por la politica, as if we didn't have enough politiqueo as it is. Se cree que he is the Deputy Chief Ministron, come el Peter Two.
Y que me dices del otro, que se cree he is the Deputy Foreign Secretary. Y tu Juan how is he getting along?
Asusta estoy, Cynthia mia, porque quiere trabajar. He wants a job in the new dockia and has sent una aplicacion.
Let him work, it'll keep him out of mischief.
Mujer, it is not that. Es que ya tiene sus aņos para trabajar en una manchina.