Chief minister misquoted over

joint sovereignty after Brexit

A mistake by the
Independent when
reporting on Mr Picardos
interview with Sky News
caused a furore in the
Gibraltar, the UK and Spain
:: DEBBIE BARTLETT
GIBRALTAR. The chief minister,
Fabian Picardo, was misquoted by
the Independent last weekend as
saying that if the UK voted to leave
the EU, Gibraltar would consider
joint sovereignty with Spain.
In fact, in the interview with
Sky News which was the basis for
the Independents online article,
Mr Picardo had been quoting the
Spanish foreign minister, Jos
Manuel Garca-Margallo, who has
threatened to block Gibraltars access to the single market in the
event of a Brexit, unless it agrees
to joint sovereignty between the

There are fears that a leave vote could close the border. :: REUTERS/J. NAZCA
UK and Spain.
The chief minister made it very
clear in the TV interview that joint
sovereignty was something that
nobody in Gibraltar would ever

consider.
After the Independent article
appeared, the news that Gibraltar was considering joint sovereignty spread like wildfire and was

copied by several media in the UK

and Spain.
After being corrected by the Gibraltar authorities the Independent
changed its online article, and many
others did the same, but several Spanish newspapers continued to show
the false claim on their websites despite being advised that the information was incorrect. In fact, some went
even further and claimed that Gibraltar wanted to become part of Spain
if the result of the referendum on 23
June was to leave the EU.
Although the Spanish foreign
minister has said he does not want
Britain to leave the EU, in a radio
interview with RNE in March he
said that if it did happen, it would
be sensible to take advantage of
the fact and that the subject of Gibraltar would be on the table for
discussion the very next day.
There are fears in Gibraltar that
if the UK votes for Brexit Spain
could close the border. In the TV
interview Mr Picardo explained
that The current Spanish foreign
minister has been explicit that
[leaving] might mean closing the
frontier if Britain were to leave the
European Union, not the day after the vote but when the United
Kingdom was actually to leave.