European Commission Executive Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation José Manuel Albares and UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, together with the Chief Minister of Gibraltar Fabian Picardo, met in Brussels earlier today.
With the EU Commission delegation arriving this morning ahead of today’s inspection of the Gibraltar Spain frontier and its border controls on each side, Spanish independent trade Union CSIF once again held a demonstration on the La Linea side of the border. The Union, which covers workers in the surrounding Campo de Gibraltar area, continued to protest the fact that Ayuntamiento workers are still owed several months of salary from the council.
The Opposition is asking the Government to provide details of the intended purpose of “Strand Credit Finance Company Limited” – a UK company, which according to information available to the Opposition, appears to have common directors to Credit Finance Company Limited, the Gibraltar company that has received more than £307 million of savers’ money from the Gibraltar Savings Bank (“the GSB”) and has loaned over £30 million to the owners of the Sunborn Hotel.
It will be recalled that in July of his year, the Opposition had been questioning the Government as to the manner in which it was using the money of GSB debenture holders in order to fund Government projects. The Government had done so by causing the GSB to invest over £307 million in a Gibraltar company called Credit Finance Company Limited, which in turn, was then lending money to private entities and also the management company of certain housing estates. The loan to the Sunborn Hotel was only admitted to exist by the Chief Minister in an interview with the Chronicle a day after the by-election, despite repeated calls by the Opposition to come clean on the issue both in Parliament and outside it.
The frontier queue website has recorded a total of 340,000 hits during the month of August, according to the latest data that was made available to the Government on Sunday. This represents an average of 11,000 hits per day.
The majority of hits, 168,520, have come from Spain, followed by 127,616 hits from Gibraltar. This clearly reflects the high level of uncertainty generated among people on both sides of the border following the lengthy delays that have been experienced to travel into Spain or to exit from Spain.
With the EU Commission delegation arriving this morning ahead of today’s inspection of the Gibraltar Spain frontier and its border controls on each side, Spanish independent trade Union CSIF once again held a demonstration on the La Linea side of the border. The Union, which covers workers in the surrounding Campo de Gibraltar area, continued to protest the fact that Ayuntamiento workers are still owed several months of salary from the council.
The Opposition is asking the Government to provide details of the intended purpose of “Strand Credit Finance Company Limited” – a UK company, which according to information available to the Opposition, appears to have common directors to Credit Finance Company Limited, the Gibraltar company that has received more than £307 million of savers’ money from the Gibraltar Savings Bank (“the GSB”) and has loaned over £30 million to the owners of the Sunborn Hotel.
The frontier queue website has recorded a total of 340,000 hits during the month of August, according to the latest data that was made available to the Government on Sunday. This represents an average of 11,000 hits per day.
