Young Dave, far from thinking that leaving the EU would be a
jolly good wheeze, has been invoking its laws to try and force those dastardly
Spaniards to give ground on the border checks they are making for traffic
crossing between La Línea de la
Concepción and Gibraltar. In pursuit of this objective, he has phoned EC
President José Manuel Barroso to
talk about the right of free movement.
Which last will
bring a wry smile to those who had to queue all the way back to the Autoroute
junction recently when a shortage of UK Border Agency staff at the Coquelles Channel
Tunnel Terminal led to cars waiting for hours to clear Customs and board Folkestone
bound shuttles. There could be no protest in that case, save
by the Maily Telegraph, as it was
self-inflicted.
And what the
Government and press are still not prepared to admit is that the Gibraltar
dispute is not a smokescreen to deflect Spanish peoples’ attention from
economic problems, or try to get folks to “look
over there” rather than notice the potential for scandal to engulf PM
Mariano Rajoy’s Party, but is primarily a reaction to the Gibraltar Government
and its recent actions.
Current first
minister Fabian Picardo is regarded as significantly more belligerent than his
predecessor, Peter Caruana. And following the last Spanish General Elections in
2011, there has been a new Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Manuel García-Margallo,
who is hostile to Gibraltar remaining in British hands. So when Picardo oversaw
the creation of that “artificial reef”,
he should have thought first.
This has given García-Margallo
the required pretext for reaction, and also to wheel out a list of grievances:
added to those of the local fishermen (legitimate), and the complaints over
bunkering (not sure about that one), has now come the demand that any future
talks are not merely tripartite ones – featuring the London, Madrid and
Gibraltar Governments – but should include the Junta de Andalucía.
But don’t we have
an ace up our sleeves, with all those tourists visiting Spain every year? Ah
well. Think also of the one million British expats in Spain, mainly in the
South. Then remember that 80% of Gibraltar’s tourists are Spanish (often taking
advantage of the lack of VAT), and that around 6,700 Gibraltarians live in
Spain, but do not pay any tax there.
Many of Gibraltar’s
residents carry an EU Health Card and use facilities in Spain. Sure, thousands
of Spanish citizens living in what is known as the Campo de Gibraltar work on The Rock. But this action is not so much
Spain cutting off nose to spite face, as a Mexican standoff with Madrid holding
the biggest gun, and Cameron and William ‘Ague having already blinked.
As I said
previously, time to haul that
concrete out of the sea and think again.
2 comments:
"Which last will bring a wry smile to those who had to queue all the way back to the Autoroute junction recently"
Recently? It was 15 months ago.
There could be an interesting few months coming up for Rajoy and Dave. The Summer 2014 holiday brochures are about to hit the High Streets. If Dave and his editor friends have convinced the British public about how beastly the Spanish have been then there will be a backlash and people will book elsewhere - not something the Spanish economy can take at the moment. That will put Rajoy in a corner and Dave looking even more smug than usual. But if, as I suspect, the British public are all in favour of critisicing foreigners right up to the moment when it affects their bank balance they will still book the cheaper Spanish options rather than, for instance, long standing British ally Portugal. In which case Rajoy can breath and Dave will be left wondering how he can explain the rising cost to a public who clearly don't care about the subject. Never mind the EU or UN, this is a job for TUI to sort out!
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