The Diplomat
Last Friday’s visit to Gibraltar by the Mayor of San Roque and PSOE MP for Cádiz, Carlos Ruiz Boix, to meet with the Rock’s Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, caused the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, some displeasure, as The Diplomat has learnt from diplomatic sources.
The discomfort is apparently due to the fact that Ruiz Boix, who was elected as an MP for the first time in the 23 July elections, did not inform the Foreign Ministry of his intention to cross the border to meet Picardo.
Sources in the department headed by Albares declined to comment on the Socialist MP’s initiative, although he went so far as to state that he is “disciplined” and that those who should have known about his visit “knew about it”.
The Diplomat has learned that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has ultimate responsibility for matters relating to the British colony, was unaware that Ruiz Boix was going to hold this meeting with Picardo, something that may prove relevant, especially after weeks of tension with the Gibraltarian authorities, which led to a formal protest by the Spanish government to the UK over Gibraltar’s harassment of Spanish vessels.
Ruiz Boix maintains a good relationship with Picardo, who thanked him for his work to overcome the latest problems recorded at the border crossing, while the mayor advocated overcoming these problems of circulation that affect cross-border workers, in order to achieve what they both call an area of shared prosperity.
Nor has it pleased the offices in the Plaza de Marqués de Salamanca that the socialist MP has quite clearly given his support to Picardo in the elections recently called in the Rock for 12 October. Ruiz Boix did not hesitate to express his hope that in these elections “there will be the opportunity to give continuity to those people who maintain a dialogue and who are keen to have a shared zone of Prosperity”.
This is not the first time in recent years that a visit by an Andalusian Socialist leader to Gibraltar has caused unease in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In April 2021, the senator for Seville, Antonio Gutiérrez Limones, apparently ignoring the warnings of the then minister, Arancha Gutiérrez Laya, and the PSOE leadership, crossed to the Rock to meet with Picardo, at a time when negotiations were about to begin between the United Kingdom and the European Commission on the future of Gibraltar after Brexit.
