CM tells UN Gibraltar will never give up right to self-determination in final C24 address

Fabian Picardo has used his final address to the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation as Chief Minister to tell its members that Gibraltar will never give up its right to self-determination.

Speaking before the Committee of 24 in New York, Mr Picardo said Gibraltar had been listed as a Non-Self-Governing Territory for eighty years, since 1946, and that Gibraltarians had first appeared before the Committee in 1963.

He said more than six decades later, Gibraltar was still asking the Committee to act.

He said future generations of Gibraltarians would continue to appear before the Committee, “year after year” and “decade after decade” if necessary, until Gibraltar was removed from the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.

The Chief Minister said Gibraltar’s right to self-determination was inalienable and enshrined in the UN Charter, as well as in General Assembly resolutions on decolonisation.

He said Gibraltar had a status separate and distinct from the United Kingdom, and that its right to self-determination was universal, unconditional and not subject to the veto of any state.

Mr Picardo strongly criticised the continued reliance on UN resolutions from the 1960s, which he said had been secured through lobbying by the Franco dictatorship. He said the argument against Gibraltar’s rights rested on texts promoted by a dictator whom modern Spain itself disowned.

Mr Picardo also referred to the UK-EU treaty on Gibraltar, describing it as historic. He said the treaty had been negotiated at the request of Gibraltar and by Gibraltar’s Government.

He said it would remove physical barriers from a bygone era and deliver greater fluidity for Gibraltarians and Spaniards whose lives and livelihoods cross the border.

However, he stressed that the treaty leaves sovereignty aside and does not compromise Gibraltar’s right to self-determination. He pointed to Article Two of the agreement, which he said makes clear that nothing in the treaty affects the respective legal positions on sovereignty and jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Garcia has met the C24's Chair Ambassador Menissa Rambally

Dr Garcia also held meetings with the United Kingdom’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador James Kariuki. 

The Deputy Chief Minister continues Government business in New York and returns to Gibraltar on Wednesday.

Mr Picardo said the treaty proved that Gibraltar was not an obstacle to good neighbourly relations with Spain, but one of its strongest champions. He said Gibraltar wanted to build prosperity and friendship with Spain, but would never do so at the price of its right to self-determination.

The Chief Minister ended with three requests to the Committee and one promise.

He called on it to send a visiting mission to Gibraltar, to stop doing nothing, and to recommend Gibraltar’s delisting to the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly.

He said sixty-three years of silence was not neutrality, but a failure of the Committee’s duty to the people of the territories, rather than the claims of states.

Mr Picardo also said that although this was his final address as Chief Minister, he reserved the right to return in future as a petitioner for Gibraltar’s civil society.

He concluded by saying the Committee could wait out a Chief Minister, but could not wait out the Gibraltarians.