Press Release

HM GOVERNMENT OF GIBRALTAR PRESS OFFICE No.6 Convent Place Gibraltar Tel:20070071; Fax: 20043057 PRESS RELEASE No: 713/2013 Date: 9th October 2013 CHIEF MINISTER'S SPEECH AT THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB TUESDAY 8TH OCTOBER 2013 “Gibraltar: Why Does It Matter to the United States?” CHIEF SECRETARY ERNEST GOMEZ: Chief Minister, distinguished guests, colleagues, thank you very much for coming this morning. I’ve been asked to introduce the chief minister of Her Majesty’s government of Gibraltar this morning to talk to us about Gibraltar and why does it matter to the United States. I’d like to start by thanking the National Press Club for the opportunity offered to government of Gibraltar to present its case this morning. And as chief secretary to Her Majesty’s government in Gibraltar, I am delighted to be able to introduce and say a few words about our chief minister, who’s going to be addressing you in a few minutes. The Honorable Fabian Picardo MP, educated at Oxford University in jurisprudence, became the leader of the opposition in Gibraltar in April 2011, and in a record eight months, his party was elected to government in December ’11, making him the chief minister to the government of Gibraltar. We’re here on an extensive visit in the United States, which includes Washington and New York, to address the U.N. Fourth Committee, and we’ve been delighted with the hospitality we’ve received as a delegation throughout Washington, in all your institutions and affiliated bodies. And we are particularly delighted to be able to have such an audience this morning, for which I thank you for taking the interest in Gibraltar and for coming along to listen to our update. Without further ado, may I introduce to you Fabian Picardo. CHIEF MINISTER FABIAN PICARDO: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to address your prestigious institution. It’s an honor indeed to be here. Perhaps before I start to tell you a little bit about why the government believes that Gibraltar matters to the United States, perhaps I should try and help you to get your bearings. Where is Gibraltar, and what does it represent? Gibraltar is a peninsula at the southernmost tip of Europe, at the entrance to the Mediterranean. It’s at probably what is the crossroads of the world, where the seas and the ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, meet, and it has long been one of the sea thoroughfares which has had great strategic and naval importance, since the times of Romans and Phoenicians. That’s where we are. We have been British since 1704, when the United Kingdom forces, together with Dutch forces, took Gibraltar during the War of Spanish Succession. A treaty was signed in 1713 known as the Treaty Signed at Utrecht on European Peace, the Treaty of Utrecht, as it’s known in shorthand. That’s exactly 300 years ago. So if you want to think about it this way, Gibraltar has been British by treaty for 63 years more than the United States has been independent, and it’s been British by conquest for 72 years more than America has been independent. So setting that in context, the British people of Gibraltar now believe that they have an important and pivotal role to play in modern Europe and that there is great synergy between Gibraltar and the United States of America, as much as there can be with other partners with Gibraltar around the world, in particular, the United Kingdom and all states of the European Union. Let’s talk a little bit about the historical context in which the United States and Gibraltar have had opportunities to work together in partnership. Well, of course, the special relationship that ties the United Kingdom and the United States reflects on Gibraltar, which is a British overseas territory today. And that special relationship between the U.K. and the U.S., in particular in issues related to military matters, raises the significance and importance of Gibraltar to the United States as an important military base of the United Kingdom. Even in the 19th century, American naval assets visited Gibraltar during the Barbary Wars. During the First World War, there were American naval assets in Gibraltar. But perhaps the greatest presence of American assets in Gibraltar occurred during the Second World War. During the Second World War, Gibraltar’s importance to the defense of what we might call Western parliamentary democracy in the face of advancing Nazi fascism across Europe and much of the world was highlighted. At Operation Torch, which was led by General Eisenhower from Gibraltar, was the beginning of the fight back by the Allies to take back North Africa, and then from there Europe. General Eisenhower had his headquarters in Europe inside the Rock of Gibraltar. The rock is riven with tunnels. There are more miles of tunnels inside the rock than there are miles of road on the rock. And in the very center of the rock was General Eisenhower in his command center. The airfield at Gibraltar was developed at the old time from an old hippodrome, and using much of the debris from creating tunnels inside the rock, an airfield was created that was, at that time, during the second world war, covered in fighter aircraft and in bomber aircraft of the Allied Command. It was from there that Operation Torch began and North Africa was successfully taken. So as a military asset, the importance of Gibraltar during the Second World War cannot be underestimated. And Churchill was very clear about that, and a future American president spent his time during the Second World War in the heart of Gibraltar. Of course, we’ve moved on to the Cold War. And Gibraltar was an equally significant military asset during that period. I remember being a child at school learning about the divisions between East and West and the Berlin Wall and seeing the places that were targeted by Moscow for nuclear attack. And Gibraltar was one of them. So the importance of Gibraltar was not underestimated by the enemies of freedom and democracy that saw the importance and significance of Gibraltar, not just to the United Kingdom but also to the United States as an important ally of the United Kingdom. Perhaps before I move on to more modern times, I can tell you that there’s a very interesting and significant discovery, just off Gibraltar’s airfield, of a Liberator aircraft of the United States Air Force that appears to have gone down in the second world war in operations off Gibraltar Airport. We know that three such Liberators went down. One of them carried General Sikorski, the president of the people of Poland, who died just off Gibraltar’s runway. We recently celebrated an anniversary of his passing with the high- ranking members of the Polish government in Gibraltar. Another Liberator bomber was Bomber AL516. And the third that went down – and it appears to be the one that has recently been found by the Gibraltar Museum research unit – was Liberator Bomber AM911. The government of Gibraltar will be working with the museum to try and bring Liberator Bomber AM911 out of the sea and on permanent exhibition in Gibraltar, to show the relationship between Gibraltar and the people of the United States is an enduring one and has been continuing now for many generations indeed. I think that’s an important project for us to highlight at this time of wanting to demonstrate and strengthen the ties between the people of Gibraltar and the people of the United States. After the Cold War, when the world started to appear not to be divided between East and West and started to appear to become polarized between North and South, Gibraltar’s importance of course remains pivotal. Gibraltar is at the northern end of the Mediterranean, the northwestern end of the Mediterranean, and we face down towards North Africa. On a good day, we can see cars circulating on the North African coast. So Gibraltar faces one of the less stable regions in the world at the moment, although the Kingdom of Morocco is an ally of the United States and seems quite stable. Of course, there are issues affecting North Africa, not just in Morocco, and Gibraltar is ideally placed as an area from which to consider how best to advance into North Africa in terms of spreading the principles of Western democracy. The United States is doing a lot with its ally in Morocco and has established a permanent presence in the kingdom. Gibraltar is the closest English-language common-law jurisdiction to the Kingdom of Morocco. Of course, the United States has bases in Rota and Moron in Spain. Spain is an important ally as well in the NATO alliance and an important part of the European Union. But Gibraltar remains part of the United Kingdom as a British Overseas Territory, and the special relationship that made Gibraltar so significant during the Second World War endures even now. In modern times Gibraltar has become a staging post for the fleet of the United Kingdom, which, of course, continues to hold a naval base at Gibraltar and a forward-mounting base using Gibraltar Airport. But we’re not just there for the United Kingdom. We’re also there for her allies. And we therefore frequently receive in Gibraltar visits of the United States Mediterranean Fleet and sometime visits of the United States nuclear assets, like nuclear submarines of the United States fleet.

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