Europe, Boring Until it's Not

[Montegriffo]

These are my people.

The passing of ‘exceptional’ former AACR(Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights) Health Minister, Aurelio Montegriffo, was marked with heartfelt condolences from members of parliament yesterday.

The family of the late Mr Montegriffo attended the opening of Parliament where members underscored his “revolutionary” work in the field of health.

Mr Montegriffo died last Sunday, aged 97, and was a founder member of the AACR party, he was Gibraltar’s first Minister for Health having assumed the post in 1964.

The tributes began with Chief Minister Fabian Minister who remarked on Mr Montegriffo’s contributions to Gibraltar.

Maria Louisa Montegriffo, known as Mari Montegriffo, is a former Gibraltarian politician. She was a Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party member of the House of Assembly from 1984 to 2007, the first female Mayor of Gibraltar (1988–95), as well as the Minister of Medical Services and Health and the Minister of Sport in Joe Bossano's administration (both 1988–96).

Peter Montegriffo, former GSD(Gibraltan Social Democrats) Minister and founder of the party, has confirmed he will not put his name forward as a candidate in the forthcoming GSD leadership election. In a letter to the Leader of the Opposition Roy Clinton which was made public yesterday, Mr Montegriffo says he remains “passionately involved in playing a part in helping Gibraltar’s continuing success” but it was not his intention to stand.
In the letter he says, “I do not, however, intend to put my name forward as a candidate in this leadership election. These are never easy decisions, especially for someone who has been close to politics over the years.”
There has been much speculation in the past week after a GBC poll indicated when the majority of voters said they would opt for Mr Montegriffo to lead the GSD.

[Montegriffo]

The main religion of Gibraltar is Christianity with the majority of Gibraltarians belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. Other Christian denominations include the Church of England, the Gibraltar Methodist Church,[17] the Church of Scotland, various Pentecostal and independent churches mostly influenced by the House Church and Charismatic movements, as well as a Plymouth Brethren congregation. There is also a ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Jehovah's Witnesses. There are a number of Hindu Indians, a Moroccan Muslim population, members of the Bahá'í Faith[18] and a long-established Jewish community.[19][20]

Genoese/Italian Surnames

Research by Fiorenzo Toso in 2000 about the names of Gibraltarian families of Genoese origins found that most of the emigration from the Italian region Liguria was from the areas of Genoa and Savona, and some surnames such as Caruana, often believed to be Maltese, originate from Sicilians who emigrated to Malta during the Italian Renaissance).[10]

The following are the most common Genoese surnames in Gibraltar, according to Toso's research. The number of Gibraltarian residents who have these surnames, according to Gibraltar's Yellow Pages are provided in parenthesis.

Parody (45), Baglietto (45), Danino (33), Olivero (50), Robba (32), Montegriffo (34), Chipolina (25),[11] Ferrary (35), Ramagge (24), Picardo (6), Isola (24), Canepa (12), Cavilla (14) and Bossano (15

[Speaker to Animals]

Liberate our Catholic brothers from tyranny by that Protestant pirate kingdom.

[Montegriffo]

We helped write the constitution...

The Gibraltar Constitution Order 1969 was published on 30 May 1969 as an Order in Council.

The constitution was the outcome of the Constitutional Conference chaired by Malcolm Shepherd, 2nd Baron Shepherd which lasted from July 16, 1968 to July 24. The Gibraltarian members of the Constitutional Conference were: Joshua Hassan, Aurelio Montegriffo and Abraham Serfaty for the Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights; Robert Peliza, Maurice Xiberras and legal advisor Sir Frederick Bennet for the Integration With Britain Party; and Peter Isola.[1]

[Montegriffo]

Hopefully the Dutch will just sink both your fleets in a repeat.

It was an Anglo-Dutch force which took Gibraltar in 1704.

[Speaker to Animals]

Hopefully they will sink your fleet too this time.

[Speaker to Animals]

Remember Medway!

[Otern]

I just don't get the current Spanish government's reasoning behind all this now.
They're facing an election, where nationalists might be a bit too popular to their liking. So they escalate against the brits, (something those nationalists might have done too). But this is not going to make them more popular than the nationalists, it's just going to put a theme where the nationalists are stronger on the agenda.

If they did it, only to pull out and say; "see, this could get worse if THOSE guys were in power", they're only going to lose trust from their base, when they act like nationalists. It's probably a political move, but it's one of the worst political moves they could do.

[Speaker to Animals]

There's no fucking way they could hold on to that place against the British.

[Montegriffo]

They periodically pull stunts like this. They cause massive delays at the Gibraltar/Spain border and occasionally shut it all together.
They threatened to veto any Brexit deal agreement between Britain and the EU unless talks are reopened on Gibraltan sovereignty (they didn't follow through).
My guess is that the government is trying to project strength for domestic consumption. A united Spain also counters Catalonia's separatist movement.
It is a nice diversion away from the trials of separatist leaders.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel after all... (the origins of this quote references false patriotism for ulterior motives)

Interestingly the BBC rolling news channel has not mentioned it once in the last two hours that I've been watching.
It is not a major news story here at all. The only mention of the Royal Navy has been a coastguard vessel in the channel intercepting a boat full of refugees despite the fact that a British warship was reported to have escorted the Spanish Naval ship out of Gibraltan territorial waters.

The possibility that this was a rogue action by the Spanish captain or his radio operator can't be ruled out either although I think this is unlikely due to their history of pulling stunts like this.