Declassified Foreign Office Documents Reveal Gibraltar Plans

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

24 April 2002

A report in the Malta Independent has revealed that in 1971, the United Kingdom considered handing ownership of Gibraltar to a humanitarian Catholic body in order to resolve the Anglo-Spanish dispute over the territory.

There has been speculation in the region's media this week that an amendment to the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht - in which the King of Spain ceded ownership of the teritory to the British - is being considered. However, the Maltese report, which cites newly declassified UK Foreign Office documents, shows that creative solutions to the problem of Gibraltarian sovereignty have always been the United Kingdom's strong suit.

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem is a Catholic body based in Rome, and has its own constitution, passports, and stamps. It has diplomatic relations with around 90 countries, but has a special connection with Malta, which it ruled from 1530 to 1798.

In a 1971 briefing note written by the then Ambassador to Madrid, Sir John Russell to the Foreign Office, Gibraltar was controversially referred to as an 'extinct volcano'. Sir John added that 'economically, Gibraltar is of no benefit to us.'

According to the Malta Independent report, the Ambassador suggested handing Gibraltar over to the Order on a lease arrangement, arguing that this would allow the territory's residents to be British or Spanish as they wished. However, the proviso that 'there might be a provision for eventual reversion to Spain' is likely to send a shudder down Gibraltarian spines.

The newly declassified papers also reveal that the possibility of Britain taking a 999 year lease on the colony in exchange for transferring sovereignty to Spain was also considered by the Foreign Office in the 1970s.

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