Gibraltar - What Does Spain Really Think

Posturing amongst the politicians for short-tern attention, without regard to the general population or long-term realities of life ? A bit like Argentina ?

I wonder if the same poll, run in Spain would produce the same result ? ie nobody wants to share sovereignty !

Cheers

Don

Yep, that's the form, 'We've made a total bollox of running our country/economy so lets take a pop at Gibraltar/The Falklands and attract everyones attention from our domestic crisis'

twots.

Actually there is a simple answer to this one - tell Spain sure we'll return Gibraltar when you return Ceuta to Morocco...

regards,

Giles

I hate to come over as a cynic but isn't the Spanish PM in a bit of a pickle over a funding scandal at the moment?

And isn't the Spanish economy a bit of a mess as well?

Just sayin' like...

But unlike Argentina, whose government can posture as much as it likes without much fear of consequences, Spain is a prominent and long-established member of the European Union which has rules and regulations covering such things as travel, transport and trade.  The EU also has mechanisms for enforcing those rules which can be invoked not just by other aggrieved governments but by the people and businesses affected.  The Spanish government is therefore running the risk of legal challenge with the ensuing political embarrassment of being seen to have to climb down, which will be hard to keep out of the Spanish media. So if this policy is being pursued for domestic political reasons the government might have made a serious miscalculation.

Especially with regard to charging 50 euro for all but Spanish citizens to cross the border each way which is totally illegal and contravenes the Treaty of Rome.

As you know, Steve, the government spokesmen are only suggesting the 50 euro charge, though I agree that in such a discriminatory form it would be blatantly illegal under EU law. And I can't believe that the Spanish government hasn't been told this by its own lawyers. But I reckon that the systematic searching of every non-Spanish vehicle travelling from Gib to Spain is probably illegal too.  Checks for security purposes have to be proportionate.  Can the Spanish government demonstrate that it is reasonable in assuming that every car potentially contains terrorists, justifying the searching of each one? I suspect there are very many highly professional Spanish officials and diplomats who are deeply embarrassed by the actions of its politicians.  

I see that Argentina has repeated itself at the UN over the Falklands.

Can we afford a punch-up? Could we manage it now?

I can see a couple of Tornados and Apaches being deployed to Gib fairly soon if the heats keeps increasing.

Tony

Fighting over the Falklands was utter folly lasts time.

Better to have saved the money spent on the War, and divided up a similar amount between those of the 1,800 Falklanders who were wanting to settle in the UK. Each would have have been wealthy as a result, and nobody would have been killed - political hubris on both sides.

The retention of the last vestiges of Empire is crazy. We should offer the Gibralterians UK residence with a sweetener and hand the place back to Spain pronto.

Just a POV, but a very strongly held one - held since the dispute before the Falklands War, actually.

ATB from George

But I think the residents/citizens of Gibralta would rather stay in Gibralta. Otherwise they wouldn't be in Gibralta...

My thoughts exactly. The Gibraltarians are a hardy lot, and they've easily survived the Spics getting awkward before.

I'm a pacifist, but I couldn't accept my country being walked over by a bunch of lazy foreigners. Sort your own country out, then come back to us and the people of Gibraltar, and talk, talk, talk.

Tony

Interestingly a lot of Brits who work in Gibraltar live across the border in places like Alcadaesa and San Roque. I wouldn't want to live in Gib, it's a dump. 

Offer a sweetener to them to either accept Spanish sovereignty or move away.

Britain has no reason to live in a pre-1939 World of Empire nowadays. All the countries of the EU are allies ... No military risk is posed to Britain by Spain or even by Spain having sovereignty over Gibraltar.

We need to be realistic about this.

My view would be to sort out Spaniards arriving at any UK port of entry and put them into a queue that is only serviced when no other nationality needs to be checked in to the country (apart from the Americans - so they can suffer the same way that we have to do when we are classed as non resident aliens).

However some one is bound to shout out about deprivation of Human Rights, and so they would be shuffled to the front of the queue  ahead of people holding passports issued in the UK.  

When did wrongs make a right?

This is the intransigence of those who still think GB can manage the World with a bit of gunboat diplomacy.

That time passed the best part of a century ago in reality

ATB from George

Derek - such action might play well with the Daily Mail and maybe some would feel it morally justified but it would also be wrong and illegal.  The UK should in my view stay the right side of EU law and hold Spain to account for flouting it.  

George - your earlier sentiments on the Falklands conflict make economic and humanitarian sense but for me the message Mrs T sent to the Argentinian dictator and the watching world was overridingly important.  I abhorred much what Mrs T did during her political career (and what I suspected were her underlying motives) but on the Falklands I would support the decision 100%.  Invading an island whose inhabitants has overwhelming expressed a wish to stay British was wrong on every level and to expect the UK to then 'negotiate' got the rejection it thoroughly deserved.

But let's not equate Gibraltar with the Falklands - the UK has a generally wonderful relationship with the Spanish people and their beautiful country. We should work hard not to jeopardise that through the grand-standing actions of few mis-guided Spanish politicians. As Mike B infers in his original post, most Spanish people probably think these politicians are prats, too. 

Dear MDS,

What Mrs. Thatcher did she did as the result of winning elections, and without the Falklands War she would have won only one. She was deeply unpopular before the Falklands War, and only gained ther second election winning popularity on the backs of the dead military men who helped recapture the territory. Politicians are such opportunists.

I am inclined to think that no Falklands War and no second Thatcher election victory would have been best for everyone.

ATB from George

Considering Spain have an exclave just across the straits in Morocco, they don't really have a leg to stand on concerning their objection to Britain's presence in Gibraltar.

Of course history is littered with examples of countries treating territories as their own when everything suggests otherwise.

Both Germany and Russia have treated Poland as theirs for centuries.

It is time to break with this strategy as British and Europeans, even if not every other country will follow it.

I mean by starting with Gibraltar, and the Falklands, and if this means resettling people and compensating them, well that would be the one-off cost of a morally correct style of action ...

ATB from George

And you'd be wrong on several counts.

First Labour were unelectable in 1983 - a ram-shackled set of policies including withdrawing from the EU. It might have been a smaller majority but Labour wouldn't have won.

Second there was so much of Margaret Thatcher's politics I didn't like but on the 2 occasions Labour have left Office in my lifetime (1979 and 2010) they have left the country bankrupt. On the other hand when the Tories left Office in 1997 the Country was relatively prosperous.

George - I entirely agree with you about about the opportunistic nature of politicians and that Mrs T won re-election on the back of her Falklands 'victory.  But none of that detracts from my view that her decision to stand up to the Argentine dictator was the right one. And I say that as someone who wouldn't have voted for Mrs T under any circumstances.  

MDS 

Dear Strat,

You would be as entitled to your opinion as I am to mine!

I am afraid that Tony Blair [who had the foresight to leave office just before the mess became obvious] has far more in common with Mrs Thatcher than any Tory politician of significance that I can think of. I had no time for either, but accept that they were both elected and both did what politicians do. Screw the little people. And walk over the dead along the way. Thatch in the Falklands and Blair in Iraq.

ATB from George

Strat - my point is not about domestic UK politics (though I don't disagree with you about Labour being unelectable in 1983) but about making the right decision in standing up to a dictator-led invasion, even though that was a hard decision fraught with risk.  The easy decision would have been to negotiate and make some concessions. But those concessions would have been secured through the original perpetration of an illegal and unjustifiable act.  

MDS  

Very true Frank. I think the reassuring thing is that the only people who take the Spanish Government seriously are themselves.