The Government has said that it has not agreed to discuss matters relating to Community Care and state pensions with the Spanish union Union General de Trabajadores.

A statement on a meeting that was meant to take place today continued:

“Over the past weeks HM Government of Gibraltar has met with relevant Gibraltarian and Spanish representative organisations by way of courtesy visits to share progress on matters relating to Brexit.

“A scheduled meeting with regional Union General de Trabajadores (UGT) representatives from the Cadiz area was scheduled to take place today Wednesday 2nd December. Regrettably, the Chief Minister was unavailable at short notice given the need to tackle pressing matters relating to the ongoing Brexit negotiations. As a consequence, the meeting was postponed.

“The Government is aware through reports in the Spanish regional press that elements of UGT’s agenda included discussing matters linked to Community Care and/or state pensions. The Government wants to make it clear that it has not agreed to a discussion on these matters and, indeed, that it is unable to discuss matters related to Community Care as that is an independent charity. Matters relating to Community Care are for its Trustees.

“HM Government of Gibraltar values the role representative organisations play within civil society in Gibraltar and immediately beyond the border, and to this extent will continue to pursue a policy of informing relevant actors as to the state of play of Brexit. The Government looks forward to inviting UGT representatives at a future date to share progress on the negotiations in the same manner that other representative organisations have now been informed of progress.”