Gibraltar's war of words with Spain: Where is the EU?

from the Daily Express.

YOU CAN tell when a government is in trouble - it starts looking overseas, spoiling for battles to boost national pride.

By: Ross Clark

Published: Tue, August 6, 2013

2Comments

A woman stretches her legs in the queue to enter Gibraltar

Failing Argentine governments start rattling sabres over the Falkland Islands while Greek ministers start beating their chests over the Elgin Marbles as if they could help mend a bankrupt economy broken by years of overspending and failure to collect taxes.

As for Spain it is always Gibraltar.

If you want to understand why Spain has started making it difficult for people to cross the border over the past few weeks and why Spanish foreign minister Jose Garcia-Margallo threatened to levy a charge of €50 (£43) on anyone crossing the border you need to look beyond the newly constructed reef, which some Spanish fishermen complain has stopped them fishing.

The real reason for the war of words is that Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's government is engulfed in a corruption scandal.

Last week Rajoy was forced to make a humiliating apology following the arrest of his party's former treasurer over allegations of a slush fund from which illegal payments were made to party bosses. Rajoy has been threatened with a vote of no confidence.

All this comes on top of Spain's economic crisis that has forced the country to go to the EU for a bailout and which has led to unemployment of 25 per cent.

How the Spanish government would love to be able to say to its people: "Look, we may have messed up the economy but we have won back sovereignty of Gibraltar."

IT IS not going to happen, of course. True, as a piece of Spain it might have fallen into British hands in a way which would not be acceptable now: it was captured by an Anglo-Dutch fleet in 1704 during a battle over the succession in the kingdom of Castile and ceded to Britain in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

Nowadays issues of sovereignty are decided democratically.

Twice, in 1967 and 2002, the people of Gibraltar have voted in referendums to remain British, and that - to any government which cares about freedom and the rule of international law - is what matters.

The posturing of Rajoy's government would look less ridiculous if Spain did not itself have a similar colonial possession across the Straits of Gibraltar: Ceuta, an African city captured by the Portuguese in 1415 which passed to Spain in 1668.

Funnily enough, while moaning about British imperialism no Spanish politician ever called for the sovereignty of Ceuta to be ceded to Morocco to which it is attached.

But it isn't just the Rajoy government that comes off badly over Gibraltar.

Where is the EU when we need it? If the EU stands for anything it is surely the free movement of people and goods across the borders of member states.

Spain's attempt to charge to cross the border is so contrary to the rules of the single market that it would not be unreasonable to expect EU commissioners to warn Spain that it will face large fines unless it ensures unobstructed passage of people and goods across the border.

The same applies to Spain's threat to close its airspace to planes heading to Gibraltar. Ensuring that member states allow access to international flights should be one of the central roles of the EU.

There would quite rightly be uproar if David Cameron announced he was closing UK airspace to transatlantic flights between the US and Germany.

So why haven't EU commissioners read the riot act to Spain; let those planes through to Gibraltar or your aid payments will stop?

The row over Gibraltar is an attempt by Spain to distract from their troubled domestic scene

More than 4,000 Spanish citizens are employed in Gibraltar and would lose their jobs if a commute across the border were to be made impossible.

That would be a threat Spain could not ignore.

The country has done fantastically well out of EU money.

When it joined the EU in 1986 Spain was a poor country struggling to emerge from the fascist rule of General Franco who had died a decade earlier.

Since then Spain has become a modern country.

British taxpayers, through EU aid, have helped pay for new airports, high-speed rail lines and even helped to modernise the Spanish fishing fleet, even though it has undermined our own fishing industry.

Even now Spain is a net beneficiary of EU funds, receiving a net e3.72billion in 2011.

It is a strange way to thank us for all this largesse: threatening to make life difficult for the people of Gibraltar - not that it would only be they who suffered, of course.

As with most countries that lie next to each other and which are not divided by barbed wire and gun emplacements the economies and social networks between Gibraltar and southern Spain are intertwined.

More than 4,000 Spanish citizens are employed in Gibraltar and would lose their jobs if a commute across the border were to be made impossible.

The days when Britain sent in the gunboats are over.

Neither we nor any other country should attempt to hang on to colonies, overseas territories and dependencies whose people do not want us but for historical reasons the people of Gibraltar identify with Britain more than they do with Spain.

The attempt by Spain to prise sovereignty of Gibraltar is an act of verbal aggression that would be unacceptable coming from any country but coming from one of our EU partners it deserves special condemnation.