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FESTIVE TRIP TO THE SLOPES: Don’t miss our Xmas gift on the Sierra Nevada inside
PIZZA-SLICE PERFECT
December 2023
The Costa del Ski is perfect for Christmas card snowscapes and adrenaline pumping thrills, writes Iona Napier, recalling her ‘pizzashaped’ teaching tips
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THERE’S no way ing down that. I’ll I’m skiget my ski and walk up, take the lift down,” insisted ive Press colleague, my Ollooking longingly uphill, zipped gracefully while skiers His grimace was past us. ible through the barely vislayers of buff, hat and goggles, snarls were audible but the spread-eagled one as he lay tres above him, ski 20 metaken a tumble. where he’d It had been a testing day on the slopes for ski virgin Rob, and after a particularly ambitious blue run with secutive wipeouts, three conhis sense of humour had vanished without trace. It didn’t help that the rest of our impatient zoomed back to group had base for a
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ICY BLAST: The snow cannons going blast, while (inset) the view from the full top
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Vol. 8 Issue 213 www.theolivepress.es December 13th - January 10th 2024
FESTIVE GLEE
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USIC and entertainment will welcome shoppers in the lead-up to Christmas finishing off with a bang or two for the New Year. The Ministries of Culture and Business have combined to put on a Christmas extravaganza in town on December 16 with dance, music, fair attractions and an art and dance market. And local production company GibMedia has lined up extra special entertainment for New Year’s Eve with a clock countdown, live bands and DJs. Minister for Culture Christian Santos said: “Our community deserves to celebrate together in true Gibraltarian style.” The Christmas Saturday will follow on from the success of the Christmas Wonderland events which Santos called a
‘resounding success’. Bands, orchestras and choirs will fill the air with musical notes to help residents and tourists explore all the great deals Gibraltar has to offer. Minister for Business Gemma Arias Vasquez said the government wanted to ‘create a great atmosphere in town’ before Christmas ‘to support local businesses’. The party to celebrate the New Year will start on December 31, 2023 at 10.30pm with hosts James Neish, now GBC CEO, and Miss Gibraltar, Faith Torres. Popular bands Jet Stream and The Jesse Tree will usher in the new year with a host of their own songs and chart hits that will keep the public singing along until the early hours. DJs will then take over to give the remaining people the chance to dance the night away as they welcome in 2024. “I am delighted that we are back at Casemates Square for our New Year’s celebrations,” Santos said. “I am confident that our community will once again go down to the Square and enjoy the celebrations.”
AIRPORT FRENZY
SPAIN has said it would be ‘absurd’ not to have access to Gibraltar’s airport as part of any EU treaty on its post-Brexit future. And UK Minister for Europe Leo Docherty said earlier in the week he was ‘prepared to explore practical and technical options to facilitate flights between Gibraltar and the EU’. EU negotiator in the talks Maros Sefcovic said he was expecting ‘big progress’ in the ‘final push’ for an EU treaty in the
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Spain wants agreement for Gib
By John Culatto
14th round of talks on December 13-14. Minister for Foreign Affairs Jose Manuel Albares said he was ‘optimistic’ and that ‘Spain is doing everything it can’ to sign a deal. But his comments on the airport drive dangerously close to Gibraltar’s red lines on sovereignty concerns. “What sense would it make to leave out an element as beneficial for the population as the airport?” Manuel Albares asked. “To me, it seems like progress that flights can come from Spanish airports and from other European countries, promoting tourism and relationships. “The airport has to be in the agreement, of course.” His comments appeared in an interview with Spanish national newspaper El Pais. And despite Docherty’s enthusiasm he said Gibraltar had to be ‘content’ with the final deal and that the UK would not do anything that ‘compromises sovereignty’ on the Rock. Chief Minister Fabian Picardo focused on the ‘rainbow of opportunities that will bring prosperity for the whole region’ as
part of the EU treaty. “The use of the airport for European flights in that equation would be good, but it is not essential,” Picardo added. Albares has already called the European Parliament elections in June 2024 ‘a cut-off point’ for treaty talks. And the UK general election in April or May next year could further stall talks, adding to their current urgency. Picardo said he is hoping the ‘good will’ of Christmas can help push EU treaty talks ‘forward in some way, if we can’. He echoed the words of Gibraltar Governor Sir David Steel who said he wanted to see an ‘in principle agreement’ during the festive season. The comments came in interviews with GBC after Picardo returned from the latest talks in Malaga. He had travelled to the city with Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Garcia to continue trying to establish an EU treaty. “The people around the table have all become at a personal level quite friendly, but we’re sick of seeing each other to talk,”
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he said. “We want to see each other to sign!” he exclaimed. But he said he did not want to put a ‘timeline on the table’ adding that ‘objective criteria’ could push the negotiations towards agreement or not. Picardo did not comment on Spanish Foreign Minister Jose
Manuel Albares and the Governor’s claims that the airport was a sticking point. “I have to keep it to myself at this time because I think it is in the interests of the people of Gibraltar that I do,” he said. Instead, he promised to leave the talks with an agreement that was ‘safe and secure’ but also ‘beneficial’.
Terror tactics EMERGENCY services have combined with the military to practise their response to a marauding terrorist attack. The exercise was centred on The Mount where emergency workers acted out an attack on a high-profile security conference. A Gibraltar-wide manhunt would follow in such a situation, with the threat level set to critical and more armed forces patrolling the streets. They practised the finding of a suspicious package at police marine base and an assault on the Lathbury Barracks using armed police to neutralise the threat. A Strategic Coordinating Group afterwards held a ‘cold debrief’ at the government’s central building. Minister for Civil Contingencies Leslie Bruzon said the exercise had shown ‘how complex and challenging an incident of this nature will be for all of us’. “A key element of preparedness is training, learning lessons and implementing these into our plans and procedures,” he added.