Spain to close Gib language institute as ‘everyone there speaks Spanish, apart from the apes’

SPAIN intends to close the Gibraltar Cervantes Institute language centre and open one in Singapore instead.

The main function of the Cervantes centres, one of which was opened in Gib following agreements reached between the UK, Spain and Gibraltar in Cordoba in 2006, is to encourage Spanish language learning.

Spanish Foreign Office Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo justified the decision by stating that the centres are never built on land considered to be Spanish and that, “everyone in Gibraltar speaks Spanish, apart from the apes.”

British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Phillip Hammond is due to make his first visit to Madrid on February 19. The Gibraltar government has stated that Hammond has already visited 21 European capital cities therefore the meeting cannot be considered a bilateral discussion on Gibraltar.