Sir Peter says concordat and Doughty letter ‘is enough’ 

Former Chief Minister Sir Peter Caruana said the concordat and the supporting letter from Europe Minister Stephen Doughty “is enough” to reassure Gibraltar that the UK will respect its wishes on any issues arising from the treaty. 

The concordat is an agreement between the UK and Gibraltar governments that governs how they will give effect to their respective obligations under the UK/EU treaty. 

The concordat provides that, other than in exceptional circumstances, nothing will be done by the UK under the treaty contrary to the wishes of the people of Gibraltar. 

It guarantees the Gibraltar Government’s ability to exit the UK/EU treaty should it wish to or to stop a future UK government from doing so against Gibraltar’s wishes. 

Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said this week he believed that the concordat “achieved the right balance” and that the UK already had “an in extremis power” under the Constitution. 

But Opposition Leader Keith Azopardi struck a note of caution and said it “falls short” of what had been called for in the parliamentary motion passed unanimously in Parliament in March. 

The concordat was published this week alongside a letter from UK Europe Minister Stephen Doughty in which he said the UK would not “do anything or omit to do anything” save in “truly exceptional circumstances” he believed were “frankly inconceivable”. 

He said the concordat was consistent with the principle that there should be “nothing about Gibraltar without Gibraltar”, while also recognising the UK’s constitutional responsibilities. 

On Tuesday night, speaking as immigration controls were lifted at the border, Sir Peter said he was satisfied with the concordat and the accompanying letter, adding the latter addressed some of the language shortcomings in the agreement itself. 

“I think the concordat read together with the letter is enough,” he told the Chronicle.  

“It's got to be understood in the context of the UK constitutional position of the sovereignty of the UK parliament and of a British government's constitutional inability to surrender its decision-making powers to an overseas territory.”  

“In that context, the language in the letter I think corrects some of the shortcomings and the language of the concordat.” 

“And there's still time, and I hope the UK Government will agree, to transfer the language from the letter into the concordat.” 

The concordat states that the UK Government, save for exceptional circumstances defined by Sir Peter as “being something so remote we can live with”, would not do anything against Gibraltar’s wishes. 

But “the power to prevent something is not the same as the power to bring it about”, Sir Peter said, adding the language in the letter addressed this point in political terms. 

“What we want is to trust Britain to do the right thing by honouring the political commitments that have been made by a Government of the United Kingdom,” he said. 

“That's the value of this, not the legalistic value.” 

“There's no such thing as an unchangeable law in the United Kingdom. And I think it does the trick in that respect.” 

He added that he believed Mr Azopardi simply wanted the language of the letter to be reflected in the concordat itself, “and I really do think that the UK government could concede that”. 

“If you're willing to say something in a letter, you can say it in a concordat. They both have the same legal effect.”