The Diplomat
The Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, will speak next Monday, 28th, in Madrid, on the platform of the Club Siglo XXI, a debating club chaired for the last year by Nicolás Redondo Terreros.
Picardo will be presented by the British Ambassador to Spain, Hugh Elliott, and representatives of Madrid’s political and business life have been invited to the event.
His speech will focus on the current situation in Gibraltar following the Covid-19 pandemic and on the Brexit negotiations and their consequences for the colony’s relationship with Spain. The deadline for the United Kingdom and the European Union to determine the relationship they will maintain from that moment onwards is 30 June.
This is not the first time that Picardo has given a public lecture in Spain, although on other occasions it has not been easy for him to do so. For example, in February 2015, when José Manuel García-Margallo was foreign minister, his department took steps to prevent Picardo from speaking at the Desayunos del Foro Nueva Economía, at a time when the confrontation between the Gibraltarian authorities and the Spanish government was very strong. Picardo, who was to be presented by the then British ambassador, Simon Manley, then organised the conference on his own at the Palace Hotel.
A few years earlier, Gibraltar’s previous chief minister, Peter Caruana, did speak at the Nueva Economía Forum without any intervention from the Spanish authorities, possibly because there was less tension and the positions of the head of the Gibraltarian government were much less confrontational.
Now, Picardo will speak before a debating club with less political influence than the Nueva Economía Forum, but which, nevertheless, was the most prestigious during the years of the Spanish Transition. Currently, the Club Siglo XXI is chaired by Nicolás Redondo Terreros, former secretary general of the Basque Socialists and currently critical of the current PSOE leadership.
