John Culatto
LEADERS of Gibraltar’s government have had top level meetings with UK officials that will look to ‘update and modernise’ the British territory’s constitution.
Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and met with the UK Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee on the Rock.
The Committee will ‘conduct an inquiry into the status
of the UK’s Overseas Territories in the 21st Century,’ the government said in a statement.
Picardo has pushed for the UK government to modernise the Gibraltar constitution since Brexit.
Lawmakers William Wragg, David Jones, John Stevenson, Karin Smyth, and Lloyd-Russell Moyle arrived in Gibraltar this week.
They were accompanied by a clerk called Gavin Blake and Dr Patrick Thomas.
The government wants to modernise the constitution to ‘delist Gibraltar from the United Nations list of non self governing Territories’, it said.
The committee brought up an inquiry called ‘The Scrutiny of International Treaties and other international agreements in the 21st century’.
Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Garcia later met with the committee members when he got back from London.
After the meetings, the government reported that it was ‘a positive and fruitful discussion’ with the committee members.
Analysts believe Gibraltar wanted to remain in the EU after the rest of the UK left, but the current constitution prohibited it.
An updated constitution could help bring to bring new solutions brought about by the Brexit referendum which saw Gibraltar vote 96% in favour of remaining.
The UK is still in the process of discussing an EU treaty to govern Gibraltar’s status after Brexit.
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