FUTURE OF GIBRALTAR TO BE DISCUSSED AT PALMA MEETING

By Humphrey Carter THE first set of definite ground rules for the “trilateral” future of Gibraltar is going to be decided upon in Majorca next month. It was announced yesterday that the Chief Minister of the Gibraltar Government, Peter Caruana, will meet Spain's director general for foreign affairs in Europe Jose Pons and his British counterpart Dominick Chilcott for talks in Palma at a date yet to be confirmed next month. Today, Caruana and Pons will be holding a “technical” meeting in Malaga to finalise and prepare their proposals for the Majorca meeting with the British government. Two key topics on the agenda today are the future use of Gibraltar Airport and the issue of pensions for former Spanish workers in Gibraltar. Caruana and Pons will also be discussing the frontier fence, telecommunications, cross-border environmental co-operation and co-operation in cultural and sporting matters as well as police and judicial co-operation. This will be the third round of trilateral talks (the second round was held in Faro back in early July), and the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and his Spanish counterpart Miguel Ángel Moratinos are hoping that the Majorca meeting will provide some concrete proposals for them to discuss and agree when they meet again before the end of the year. However, it would appear that the trilateral talks are not quite succeeding as planned. At the Faro meeting, a full ministerial meeting, including Straw and Moratinos, was planned for October, but they will not be attending the Palma talks because agreement has not been reached over certain issues, in particular the use of Gibraltar airport and Spanish pensions. Sources in Madrid have revealed that Spain would like to have a police presence in the airport terminal and be involved in running it. However, any deal must not impinge on Britain's military interests at the airfield and the RAF could apparently block any deal if British national interests were not properly safeguarded. Building a second terminal has been suggested but the Gibraltar government quickly ruled that out.