Wednesday, February 15, 2023 - 11:21

The Government felt obliged to issue a statement at the weekend which defended its record of compliance in relation to tobacco. This came in the face of barbed and well directed comments in sectors of the Spanish press which suggested the very opposite.

IRRITANTS
But the signs were already showing even before the weekend as those sectors of the Spanish administration who are opposed to a treaty started to play their hand.

Sources in Spanish customs were already anonymously briefing the media there at the beginning of last week. They revealed that their thinking was to limit the price differential between Gibraltar and Spanish prices to 26% and to allow a transitional period, believed to be 25 years, for that margin to narrow further until prices on both sides were similar. Those same sources also accused Gibraltar of not publishing the revenue received from tobacco, when everybody knows that duty revenue as a whole is published annually in the Government Estimates at budget time.