In my opinion

In 2004 the UK Foreign Secretary met his Spanish counterpart to discuss the Gibraltar issue. The results of such such meeting being the establishment of a new forum for dialogue on Gibraltar, with an open agenda, in which Gibraltar would would have its own voice.

During a press conference, the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, made it clear that Spain's socialist government wanted to win the hearts and minds of Gibraltarians, but said its long-term aim was still to regain absolute sovereignty over the Rock.

It seems Moratinos has been involved in dirty politics for so long that he no longer understands what friendship is all about. True friendship is simply being friends without the aim of achieving some form of gain in the near or distant future, and that is certainly NOT what Moratinos or the Spanish government has on offer.

Amongst the various co-operation measures to facilitate the start of the work of the previously mentioned forum or, to use it's correct terminology, tripartite talks, are the inclusion of Spanish airports as alternative airports in the flight plans whose final destination is the airport of Gibraltar (restriction imposed in 1969 by the Spanish Dictator General Franco, and access without any restriction at Spanish ports of all pleasure cruise liners having the port of Gibraltar as a previous or subsequent port of call (another of General Franco's 1969 restrictions).

Since those measures should have never been there in the first place, the agreement can only be considered as a lifting of restrictions, not as a sign of cooperation, and if Moratinos believes that lifting of restrictions will eventually lead towards Spain regaining absolute sovereignty over Gibraltar, then I am sure Mr. Moratinos will have to wait till Hell freezes over.

Obviously the Moratinos 'friendly' attitude has not been very well received by the main Spanish opposition party, which is not surprising. Even the Mayor of the neighbouring Spanish town of La Linea was pretty annoyed and in a statement he made shortly after the 'open agenda dialogue' he said he was in favor of maintaining the pressure to fix the Gibraltar issue once and for all.

Our Government has bent over backwards at the Spanish government's change in attitude, and no sooner had the announcement been made, our Chief Minister nipped across the border for the first formal meeting on co-operation held in the Town Hall of the Spanish town of Los Barrios. The fact that Moratinos has stated that the ultimate aim in winning the hearts and minds of Gibraltarians is to regain absolute sovereignty over the Rock does not seem to bother them in the least.

After close to two years of tripartite meetings, It now seems that agreements have been reached and shortly we might see our Chief Minister signing the agreements.

Amongst other issues is the joint or shared use of our airport, however our Chief Minister refuses to disclose
what has been agreed prior to signing the agreement, the excuse being that, if it is made public, other political parties will do their best to disrupt the agreement, and that once the agreement has been reached, we will all be ever so happy.

I guess our Chief Minister does not realise that we are grown up's and we stopped believing in Father Christmas ages ago.

If the Tripartite agreement, as our Chief Minister wants to make us believe, is so good, then there would be no way that any other political party would be able to convince us against such an agreement, or does our Chief Minister believe that we small kids that can be lead in any direction by the government, the opposition or any other political party.

A joint or shared use of our airport, no matter how many advantages our Chief minister might say it has, is nothing more and nothing less, than simply sharing part of our territory with Spain. We learnt the lesson just a few years ago when Tony Blair tried to sell us to Spain with the Joint Sovereignty agreement. That treacherous attempt was defeated, but now, with the joint airport agreement it looks as if our government want to sell us over in small doses.

I do not know of anyone in their right senses not wanting Spanish, or aircrafts from any other countries landing in Gibraltar, we have never restricted spanish flights from landing on OUR airport, on the contrary, it was spain which withdrew the Madrid/Gibraltar flights back in 1969, it was and still is Spain that does not allow incoming or outgoing flights flying over their airspace when landing or taking off from our Gibraltar, it has been Spain which, until just recently, did not allow planes intending to land or taking off from Gibraltar, to land on any Spanish airport.

And now our Chief Minister wants to sell us a joint or shared use of our Airport with Spain, that is just disgusting.

Many of the restrictions imposed on Gibraltar by Spain in 1969 still stand today, the harassment to vehicles and at times, pedestrians crossing from Gibraltar to Spain and vice-versa has not diminished. The restrictions on the number of international telephone lines, etc., etc., No Mr Minister, Spain should first show signs of respect and friendship towards us, Spain should cease it's never ending claim on what is rightfully our country, spain should stop the harassment and all those restrictions imposed when the Fascist Dictator General Franco was alive, and only then should you sit and talk about agreements, but no, instead of demonstrating that we as a people do not deserve the treatment from Spain that we are constantly exposed to, you sit with them to talk about a joint or shared agreements of part of our homeland.

The fact that Spain's ultimate aim is sovereignty over our homeland does not seem to bother our government, what seems to be important are short term commercial interest.