LA LINEA de la Concepcion takes another step in its plan to become autonomous

Gibraltar & El Campo
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The municipal government team of La Línea de la Concepción, in the province of Cadiz, has taken another step in its aspiration for the municipality to become an autonomous community like Ceuta and Melilla, and will present the ordinary plenary session on July 8, an agreement to initiate the procedure that allows a popular consultation to take place.

The report of this proposal, which will definitely go ahead, since the party that governs the Town Hall of this Cadiz municipality, La Línea 100×100, has an absolute majority, and bases its argument on a justifying report prepared by the Town Hall of La Linea itself, on the convenience of holding this consultation and directing to the Cortes Generales and the Spanish Government the application of the constitutional mechanism – that is provided for in article 144/9 – to achieve the status of autonomy.

This is interesting from Jan -

Brexit: End to Gibraltar land border prompts joy and trepidation -

The Spanish workers of La Línea de la Concepción are at the ready to celebrate the removal of the Gibraltar border controls. And they have reason to.

This small coastal town bordering Gibraltar is one of the poorest in Spain. A third of people here are unemployed and in some neighbourhoods that figure rises to 80%. Drug trafficking from Morocco and armed gangs have become a problem for police.

Fifteen thousand residents have jobs in Gibraltar where wages are on average 20% higher. And Gibraltar needs them for the lifeblood of its economy, especially in the nursing, catering and cleaning industries.

What will change

As part of the UK's exit from the EU, the UK and Spain have agreed in principle that the land border will go, possibly within six months, but the terms of the deal first have to be made into a formal treaty with the EU:

  • The single road linking the territories will be widened to allow people and cars to travel freely

  • Some infrastructure will stay at the border, a few guards will remain on standby, and finalities still need to be worked out such as judging the necessity of certain customs checks away from the border and if so how they would work

  • For the border to disappear, Gibraltar will effectively become part of Europe's passport-free travel area - the Schengen zone - though there is a different use of language from both sides on whether it will be "part of", or "connected to" Schengen

  • With the border gone, new arrivals will only be checked if they >enter by sea at the port and by air

  • For the first time, as well as the Gibraltar border guards, there will be guards from the EU border and Coastguard Agency known as Frontex also checking passports.

Well, it's 5 months - and where does it stand - Politicians are dancing around.

What's interesting is Gibraltar could have recognized it needed to Unite the Campo long ago; and truly help those in La Linea and The Campo – DID IT? – and now, it's part of Picardo's rhetoric (see the treaty dance thread).

Where did Picardo get that idea?

Does he have ££ in his eyes now when it comes to what's happening in The Campo and wants to unite it for the globalists.

God will cause it to happen – it is prophesied – The Campo will be united Under Christ, not Satan:

Uniting The Campo Under Christ Not Madrid

The Camp of Gibraltar and the Rock of Gibraltar; Origins, Today and their Bright Future

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They vote day after tomorrow on July 8

Councillors in La Linea de la Concepcion to vote on city’s status

If approved, residents will then be asked to vote on whether or not they want the municipality to become an autonomous city with self-government like Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s enclaves in north Africa.

Local government argues that the city’s dependence on Gibraltar warrants a change in status. If approved, a legal process would begin that could result in La Linea de la Concepcion remaining part of Cadiz province but no longer part of the area governed by the Junta de Andalucia.

This would be a positive move to UNITE THE CAMPO – The Camp of Gibraltar and the Rock of Gibraltar; Origins, Today and their Bright Future.

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La Línea takes first step in bid to become an autonomous city

La Línea de la Concepción has taken its first steps into what its mayor, Juan Franco, called “terra incognita”, approving a council resolution seeking permission from Madrid to sample citizens’ views on La Linea becoming an ‘autonomous city’. The motion passed with the support of the majority of councillors, with PSOE members abstaining.

In a constructive debate between the party in power and the opposition over how to overcome the economic and social problems strangling the city, Helenio Fernández, spokesperson for the ruling La Línea 100x100, said the “public consultation” sought a way of “granting La Línea all the tools which would allow the city to face its problems and find solutions… to breathe, for this city to live, progress and develop itself.”

A move toward UNITING THE CAMPO – The Camp of Gibraltar and the Rock of Gibraltar; Origins, Today and their Bright Future.

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Another article on the vote

La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz) does not want to be Andalusian and begins the process of independence

https://marketresearchtelecast.com/la-linea-de-la-concepcion-cadiz-does-not-want-to-be-andalusian-and-begins-the-process-of-independence/97083/

With this, it has achieved that the municipal plenary session gives the green light to independence process. Now, they will have to hold a referendum and, later, transfer the declaration of independence to the Congress of Deputies and to Senate.

The report endorsing the La Línea City Council initiative, signed by Antonio de Cabo de la Vega, Professor of Constitutional Law at the Complutense University of Madrid, states that «Article 2 of the Constitution, after affirming (and reaffirming) the principle of unity of Spain, collects and recognizes the right to autonomy for the ‘nationalities and regions’, which will be the ones that will from that moment be entitled to access at the constitutionally protected levels of self-government. The subjects of autonomy will therefore be nationalities and regions, both understood as territorial entities with defined cultural or historical characteristics. Rivers of ink have been poured on the meaning of both expressions that it is not necessary here or even to summarize, but we must already take into account, for the purpose of this opinion, that both subjects constitute a general principle that has, like every principle, an exception, and that it will be this exception that can be used to process a process of autonomy for the Line of the Conception ».

The article listed out the six reasons La Linea wants autonomy. It also provided a link to the official report.

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Moreno says La Linea’s autonomy ambitions are legitimate

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The ballot will take place in the next six-to-nine months and any result would have to be approved by the Cortes General, that is the Spanish parliament and Senate.

Local government argues that the city’s dependence on Gibraltar warrants a change in status. If approved, a legal process would begin that could result in La Linea de la Concepcion remaining part of Cadiz province but no longer part of the area governed by the Junta de Andalucia.

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The Mayor of La Línea maintains that the proposal for the autonomous city status continues to move forward.

Franco assures that the objective is to bring the resolution of the proposal to the February plenary session and to take the consultation to the Council of Ministers.

La Línea de la Concepción Town Council has reported that, "on a political level, the proposal for the Autonomous City continues to go ahead and the intention of the Mayor of the city, Juan Franco, is to bring the resolution of the proposals and the elevation of the consultation to the Council of Ministers to the plenary session next February".

According to the statement from the Consistory of La Linea, the mayor of the city, of La Linea100x100, has made "a very positive assessment of the work done so far".

In any case, Franco has argued that "there is still a lot of work to be done to strengthen and improve the operational services during the next fifteen months of the legislature before the municipal elections".

In this sense, the La Línea de la Concepción Town Council hopes to complete "emblematic and politically important" projects during this time, "as is the case for the proposed Autonomous City".

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It seems like some of the taxi drivers from La línea would not mind if La línea was incorporated into Gibraltar.

"They have left us very much behind. I wish they'd take that border and put it at the roundabout at the beginning of town," says Jordi, looking at the fence (frontier) that separates his town, the Cádiz municipality of La Línea de la Concepción (population 62,940), from Gibraltar. He then points to the rock, which rises prominently a handful of metres away, and adds: "The pile of work there... That's a mine". Next to him, Paco listens, along with six other colleagues, all taxi drivers. They chat while waiting for customers for their cars. The latter adds: "Something else is needed here, something else. I think I would vote yes. Besides, it would be an incentive for the town (La Línea), which is abandoned. That's why the mayor wants to do that". When a young man approaches and gets into a taxi, the group disperses and starts talking about something else.

Jordi's complaints are neither unusual nor exclusive to taxi drivers. And neither is the vote to which Paco refers. In 2019, the electoral programme of La Línea 100x100, the political group that has governed the municipality since 2015, hinted at the possibility of consulting the citizens of La Línea to obtain their opinion on the constitution of La Línea de la Concepción as an Autonomous City in the style of Ceuta and Melilla. And, according to the election results, the people did not take a dim view of the issue; Juan Franco, head of that list and current mayor of the town, swept the board. He won 21 out of 25 councillors. Officially, only two councillors in the whole of Spain won more support than him in cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants. But with a notorious difference: both José María García Urbano in Estepona (Málaga) and Abel Caballero in Vigo (Pontevedra) did so under the acronyms of the big parties, PP and PSOE respectively. Juan Franco ran with his own independent group.

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On Thursday La Línea will proceed with the request for popular consultation to be an autonomous city.

Franco will meet Pacheco, to whom he insists on the proposal as a solution.

The La Linea Town Council plans to approve this Thursday the proposal to submit to the Council of Ministers the request to hold a referendum on the conversion of the town into an autonomous city.

This was stated today by the Mayor of La Línea, Juan Franco (La Línea 100x100), in a note after holding a meeting with the sub-delegate of the Government in the province of Cadiz, José Antonio Pacheco.

At the meeting, the La Linea councillor insisted on becoming an autonomous city as a way of resolving "the situation that the town is going through".

According to Franco, in the ordinary plenary session of March, which will be held this Thursday afternoon, the resolution of the allegations presented against this proposal will be addressed.

On 14 October 2021, the period of public exhibition and presentation of allegations to the plenary agreement ended, a period during which both the Junta de Andalucía and the Government Sub-delegation in Cádiz presented theirs, in opposition to the conversion into an autonomous city.

If the government team, which has an absolute majority in the Corporation, rejects these allegations, the proposal for a referendum will be submitted to the Council of Ministers.

It is "an arduous and complex path, but one in which we continue to take steps", Franco stressed.

The motion to initiate the procedures for the call for the consultation was approved on 9 July 2021 by the plenary with the votes of the 21 councillors of the party that supports the local government (La Línea 100x100), with the abstention of the three PSOE councillors and the rejection of the only PP councillor.

The full text of the question in the proposal approved at that plenary session was as follows: "Do you think it is appropriate for the La Línea de la Concepción Town Council to submit a petition to the national government and the Spanish parliament to urge the conversion of the municipality into an autonomous community, in accordance with art. 144 a) of the Spanish Constitution?

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Franco assures that it's status as an autonomous city (La Línea) does not seek to separate from Andalusia

Franco gave an account of the administrative procedure that the municipality has initiated for its conversion into an autonomous city, a status similar to that of Ceuta and Melilla.

The mayor of La Línea de la Concepción, the independent Juan Franco, has assured this Thursday that the objective "is not to separate us from Andalusia" and has framed the aspiration in that "we are endowed with the competent structure that gives an answer to serious problems that occur in our municipality and has no parallel in any other place in Spain and Europe" after warning that "we are the only municipality with a Brexit border", in reference to Gibraltar.

In an interview with Canal Sur Radio, Franco gave an account of the administrative procedure that the municipality has initiated for its conversion into an Autonomous City, a status similar to that of Ceuta and Melilla, which has on Thursday afternoon a new milestone with the convening of a plenary session of the City Council to commission a study by the Legal Services in order to interpret "the meaning of administrative silence, if we do not receive an answer what can we do".

The Mayor of La Línea is awaiting a response from the Council of Ministers to a request for a popular consultation to test the population's response to the conversion of the municipality of Andalusia to an Autonomous City.

Franco explained that the Junta de Andalucía published a press release stating that on 11 April it had sent the file to the Council of Ministers on the authorisation of a consultation which he said "is a democratic exercise that is nothing like what has been done in other communities in this country".

The leader of La Línea 100x100 explained that the administrative legislation establishes a period of three months for a response which, given that it was sent on 11 April, should have expired on 11 July, according to the accounts of the Mayor of La Línea himself, to conclude that "the silence is positive, although we are not going to rush to call the consultation, it is such a delicate issue, whether the Council of Ministers is going to answer us or not".

Questioned about the fact that the Andalusian flag would cease to fly in La Linea if it achieved the status of Autonomous City, Franco assured that "it is a question of sitting down to talk, to see the possibilities", before appealing to the fact that the municipality faces "problems of such importance" that he has used article 144 of the Spanish Constitution, which provides for the creation of "an Autonomous Community of a territorial scope smaller than the provincial one if there are issues of national interest", at which point he said that "we are the border of the only territory in Spain that maintains an active territorial claim".

After pointing out problems such as "we are the municipality of 50,000 inhabitants with the lowest life expectancy, with the lowest income level, the highest unemployment rate, with the problems of drug trafficking", Franco acknowledged the need to reverse the image of La Línea after describing that "investors who come to us perceive that it is not the most suitable place".

Franco listed other objectives associated with becoming an Autonomous City, such as responding to the fact that "there are 11,000 inhabitants who live in La Línea and work in Gibraltar, they are contributing to a foreign pension fund, they have a ridiculous pension and this has repercussions" in the municipality, to which he added the fact that "officers of the National Police, the Civil Guard, judges, prosecutors, doctors, nurses do not want to come here because they feel it is an unsafe city", which is why he has called for "a differentiated treatment for these bodies so that we have better quality health and education".

The last goal associated with achieving the status of Autonomous City is to have "a differentiated tax regime" because "we are wall to wall with Gibraltar and as a result of Brexit companies have left", so Franco has advocated having "a differentiated tax regime so that these companies can return to the municipality".

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The government does not authorise the popular consultation in La Línea on the autonomous city.

The Council of Ministers has not authorised the Town Council of La Línea de la Concepción to hold a referendum on the advisability of submitting a petition to the Government of the Nation and the Cortes Generales for the conversion of the municipality into an autonomous community in accordance with Article 144 of the Spanish Constitution.

Article 149 of the Spanish Constitution establishes as the exclusive competence of the State the "authorisation to call popular consultations by means of referendum". For its part, the Ley Reguladora de las Bases del Régimen Local recognises the right of local residents to request a referendum, establishing in Article 71 the requirement of being "matters of municipal competence and local character that are of special relevance to the interests of the residents, with the exception of those relating to the local Treasury".

The matter to be submitted to popular consultation clearly goes beyond the local character and transcends purely local interests to focus on a matter of national interest of constitutional importance.

The referendum would also be unconstitutional because the electoral body considered is not the one established in the block of constitutionality, nor is the proposed procedure the appropriate one in accordance with the Statute of Autonomy of Andalusia, so that the referendum would violate the right to political participation of Andalusians in what is presented as a proposal for a municipal referendum.

"As far as necessary".
The mayor of La Linea, Juan Franco, has assured that the refusal expressed this Tuesday by the Council of Ministers to a popular consultation on the conversion of the municipality into an autonomous city "comes as no surprise" and that he will go "as far as necessary" to achieve this objective.

Speaking to the media after learning of the Council of Ministers' decision, Franco clarified that the Town Hall is awaiting official notification, "which we expect tomorrow morning at the Town Hall's registry office".

"It is not a surprise, as the allegations presented by the Subdelegation of the Government and the subsequent response to the question of administrative silence already pointed out some of the issues raised by the Council of Ministers," said the mayor of the town of Cádiz.

"We do not agree and we will go as far as necessary, as we are playing with the future of our city due to the lack of concrete measures that we have been suffering for ever to recognise the unique situation of La Línea", he said.

The Mayor of La Línea will hold a press conference this Wednesday in which "we will make known our position and the steps to be taken so far because we are not going to stand idly by and we will continue to fight to achieve a better future for our city".

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La Línea will take the petition for a referendum on the autonomous city to the Supreme Court.

The mayor, Juan Franco, assures that the government's initial rejection of the authorisation "is not a defeat" and regrets that the city is "a sewer" for the government.

La Linea Town Council will take to the Supreme Court the Spanish Government's rejection of the popular consultation that the Consistory intended to ask citizens whether they support La Linea becoming an autonomous city like Ceuta or Melilla.

The mayor, Juan Franco, gave a press conference yesterday to show his dissatisfaction with the rejection by the central government of this consultation. He considered that "this is not a defeat" and criticised the fact that this city has become "a sewer for the government".

For the councillor, it is the only way for La Línea to prosper. In this line, Franco denounced the lack of investment, the obstruction of the port or the shortage of training and employment plans in a city with more than 9,400 unemployed.

"We are going to continue to work and to commit ourselves to improving the services and the image of our city", explained Franco. During the press conference, the mayor criticised the abandonment of the Central Government to this city, assuring that there is a lack of economic and social measures for La Línea to prosper.

"There is no investment forecast, we have third-world roads, there are no environmental issues... we are the most mistreated part of the nation", the mayor denounced. Franco assured that it is not a question of "victimism" since "we are the Spanish municipality of more than 50,000 inhabitants with the lowest income level, the highest unemployment rate, the lowest life expectancy - an average of less than 80 years -, a higher than average incidence of cancer... And the Spanish state does not take any action", he insisted.

On the other hand, he regretted that "we hear about the uniqueness of La Línea, but the State announced in November 2018 with great fanfare an Integral Plan for the Campo de Gibraltar of one billion, of which for La Línea only a fifth court was coming". The official resolution of this rejection has not yet reached the Town Hall. However, the legal services are already working to prepare the contentious-administrative appeal and take the case to the Supreme Court in order to be able to consult the residents if they want La Línea to have special treatment like Ceuta or Melilla, cities for which the government has earmarked an extraordinary package of 711 million euros.

"We have two months to go to the Court and I anticipate that, depending on the answer we get, if it is negative we will consider new ways. We just want to know what our people think," he explained.

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Spanish government denies permission for La Linea city status referendum

Spanish government denies permission for La Linea city status referendum

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The Plenary of the Town Council of La Línea de la Concepción will debate on 12 December the authorisation of the filing of a contentious-administrative lawsuit before the Supreme Court against the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the National Government of 25 October, which rejected the request of the Town Council to hold a referendum to consult whether the residents want to become an autonomous city of their own.

This was agreed by the Council of Ministers on the grounds that Article 149 of the Spanish Constitution establishes that "authorisation to call popular consultations by referendum" is the exclusive competence of the State.

Furthermore, the Government considers that this consultation would be unconstitutional because the "electoral body considered is not the one established in the block of constitutionality, nor is the proposed procedure the appropriate one in accordance with the Statute of Autonomy of Andalusia, so that the consultation would violate the right to political participation of Andalusians in what is presented as a proposal for a municipal consultation".

For his part, the Mayor of La Línea, Juan Franco, announced that the legal services were going to start preparing an administrative appeal to the Supreme Court against the resolution of the Council of Ministers. In this regard, he assured that "it was within the road map that the Corporation had set itself".

"This is not a caricature of the Puigdemont of the south and that I am going to put the ballot boxes in the schools without permission, the only thing we are defending is simply to ask our neighbours what they think of this idea", defended the mayor, who on the 12th will take to the plenary session the filing before the Supreme Court, if appropriate, of a lawsuit against the resolution of the Council of Ministers.

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La Línea appeals to the Supreme Court against the refusal of its referendum

The mayor of La Línea de la Concepción (Cádiz), Juan Franco, has announced that they continue "taking steps" with their claim and are going to present an appeal to the Supreme Court against the resolution of the Council of Ministers made public on 25 October 2022, which denied the holding of a referendum to consult whether the residents want to become an autonomous city in their own right.

Speaking to journalists, Franco explained that the appeal "is going to be based on a procedural issue, as since the petition was received through the Junta at the headquarters of the Spanish Government in April 2022, it took longer than the three months stipulated in the law, so the sense of silence is positive and the negative resolution cannot go against this legal provision".

In this sense, he stated that he hopes that the Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court will accept this argument, and from there to be able to hold the consultation, which "with the current deadlines would already be in the next term of office".

"We continue to persevere in an issue that for us is fundamental, as we have already indicated on several occasions, and which is a plan for this city to get out of the situation it is currently going through," he concluded.

It should be recalled that the Council of Ministers denied the request made by the City Council of La Linea arguing that article 149 of the Spanish Constitution establishes as the exclusive competence of the State the "authorisation to call popular consultations by way of referendum".

In addition, it recalled that the law only allows popular consultations on matters that only fall within the municipal and local sphere "that are of special relevance to the interests of the residents, with the exception of those relating to the local Treasury".

Likewise, in the resolution, it pointed out that "the matter to be submitted to popular consultation clearly exceeds the local character and transcends the purely local interest by focusing on a matter of national interest of constitutional transcendence".