Treaty opens new business opportunities, Chief Minister tells Madrid audience

While the Spanish Foreign Minister was in the Campo, the Chief Minister remained in the Spanish capital.

On Thursday morning in Madrid, Fabian Picardo has told a hall of business people, diplomats, ambassadors, other politicians and media that Gibraltar is now open for business to Spain as a place than has direct access to the UK markets. 

Mr Picardo told the high profile pan-European think tank, Nueva Economia Forum, that the Rock’s fiscal system is open and transparent to Spain, but that its common law court system is a far more agile one than Spain’s civil law.

Mr Picardo observed it had been more than three centuries since the last treaty on Gibraltar, and said it was time to choose people over politics.

In a question and answer session at the end of the event, the Chief Minister was asked who would benefit more from the treaty, Gibraltar or Spain. He replied, ‘the people’.