John Culatto
GIBRALTAR’S caretaker Chief Minister Fabian Picardo took another stab at his main election rival, claiming Spain ‘reads everything Mr Azopardi writes’ about an Andorra solution.
Picardo told a press conference aired on social media that the Spanish delegation at EU treaty talks considers the GSLP/Liberals ‘a brick wall’.
But he hinted that the Spanish delegation would prefer to be talking to a GSD government at ongoing negotiations.
The attack comes as EU negotiations are stalled until Spain can get together a new government or have to go to new elections.
“I would help a future Chief Minister of Gibraltar of any political complexion,” Picardo said.
“But I will not sit with him on a negotiating table opposite the Spanish.”
The GSLP man said that Azopardi was showing ‘contradiction’ by first writing a book on how an Andorra solution might suit Gibraltar and then saying in 2011 he is not in favour of it.
He has said that for this reason it would be ‘dangerous’ for Gibraltar to vote in the GSD at the forthcoming October 12 election.
But he GSD in a statement called the accusation ‘nonsense’ in a press release on its website.
“My view is very specific on Andorra,” Azopardi said in the party statement.
“The Andorra solution is never going to be a model for Gibraltar. Let me make that very, very clear.”
The GSD leader called the attack ‘the same old card from the old tired GSLP playbook’, claiming he had helped fight joint sovereignty in 2002 when the UK’s Labour government proposed it.
And he called it ‘a smokescreen’ to distract from ‘a litany of failures in his wake’.
Picardo’s latest attack comes as the GSLP/Liberal coalition warms its engines ahead of what could be their biggest election test yet after 12 years in office.
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