Joe Bossano

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5th Chief Minister of Gibraltar
Joe Bossano

In office 25 March 1988 – 17 May 1996
Preceded by	Adolfo Canepa
Succeeded by	Peter Caruana

Born	June 1939 Gibraltar
Political party	Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party
Spouse	Rose Marie
Religion	Atheist [1]

Joseph John Bossano, known as Joe Bossano, is a Gibraltarian politician, and leader of the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party. He was Chief Minister of Gibraltar from 25 March 1988 to 17 May 1996. Since that time he has been Leader of the Opposition in the Gibraltar Parliament.

Joe Bossano has a degree in Economics, as well as a degree in Italian from the University of Birmingham. He is a member of the Labour Party in the UK, and became part of the trade union movement there also. He was asked by a group of Gibraltarian politicians to return to Gibraltar and was elected a member of the House of Assembly in 1972. He became the District Officer for the Transport and General Workers Union in Gibraltar and was the main force behind the attainment of parity of wages with the UK for Gibraltarians. He became a member of the Integration with Britain Party, whose leader, and then Chief Minister, Sir Robert Peliza was the mover in 1969 of the Preamble to the Constitution which safeguards Gibraltar from ever passing to Spain without the expressed wishes of the Gibraltarians. He left the IWBP in 1975 to form the Gibraltar Democratic Movement, which later became the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party.

His hardline stance against any sovereignty deal with Spain without the consent of the Gibraltarians, which saw him returned to office in 1992 with a 72% majority vote, (using the slogan "Give Spain No Hope") caused considerable friction with governments in both London and Madrid who were looking for a solution to the 300 year old Spanish claim to Gibraltar. As Chief Minister he maintained good relations with Spanish politicians at municipal level, but would not sit to discuss the sovereignty of Gibraltar with them. During his time in office, Bossano also oversaw significant economic change, resulting from the decline of traditional sources of employment, such as the UK Ministry of Defence, and the creation of a private sector economy based on offshore finance and tourism. He broke the back of the severe housing problem existing in Gibraltar before he came into power, by reclaiming land from the sea and constructing hundreds of affordable flats, which were offered at very reasonable prices. For the first time, and since then, Gibraltarians have become home owners, rather than renting from the government, as was traditional.

His main quest is and has always been to achieve the decolonisation of Gibraltar through the maximum level of self government possible resulting in the removal of Gibraltar from the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.

As leader of the GSLP and the opposition, Joe Bossano is still prominent in Gibraltar politics.