Gibraltar Talks Are Falling Apart

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

16 May 2002

Jack Straw and Josep Pique, British and Spanish foreign ministers, met yesterday in London in a last-minute attempt to rescue talks about the future of Gibraltar ahead of a meeting between Tony Blair, prime minister, and Jose Maria Aznar, his Spanish counterpart, next Monday at which they had planned to announce an agreed deal. But the talks failed to make progress.

Each side has a non-negotiable position which is unacceptable to the other: for the Spanish it is the need for them to give up their long-term aspiration to regain full sovereignty over Gibraltar; and for the British it is the need to accept some degree of Spanish control over their military base on the Rock.

Although both points are deal-breakers, agreement over the future of Britain's base is the more difficult. Under pressure from Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, Mr Straw has had to make it clear that the military bases must remain under full British control, arguing that their location at the entry to the Mediterranean is of national strategic interest.

Spain argues that a sovereignty-sharing agreement should be possible over the British base, as is the case with US bases in Spain. "We have a long and trusted relationship with the US and we cannot understand why a similar arrangement cannot be reached with another Nato ally," a Spanish diplomat said yesterday.

The two sides had set a July deadline for agreement to be reached, but this now seems unlikely to be achieved.

Of course, the spectacle of Britain and Spain bickering over Gibraltar is somewhat bizarre when every man, dog and child on the territory of Gibraltar is rootedly opposed to any deal which is likely to emerge. Britain has repeatedly promised that no changes will be made to Gibraltar's sovereignty without support from a referendum in the colony.

Gibraltar's leaders have been staying away from the Anglo-Spanish negotiating process on the ground that they were being offered only 'observer' status. But now that the talks are in trouble, it might be more politic for leader Peter Caruana to come out from his shell and take part in polishing them off. Gibraltar's opposition says that the right policy is now for Gibraltar to hold a referendum on the acceptability of the talks, rather than waiting for their outcome, believing that a strong vote against the talks would now be sufficient to cause the British to withdraw.

Given the strident tone adopted yesterday by the Spanish Foreign Secretary in an interview on BBC 1, this seems a correct analysis. Mr. Pique stated categorically that the Spanish Government would never renounce ‘forever’ its historical aspiration to recover full sovereignty of Gibraltar, forgetting as he always does that Spain already did just that in the 300-year old Treaty of Utrecht. Ah well, it's just a piece of paper.

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