Spain tries to take Gibraltar via EUby Don Clark - 09:50 on 06 June 2009A diplomatic battle was looming last night after Spain tricked the EU into handing it new rights to the waters around Gibraltar.
The underhand backdoor trick has provoked fury in the British outpost and left red faces in Whitehall. And it has already produced a potential confrontation between British and Spanish ships in the region.
HMS Sabre forced a Spanish warship out of Gibraltar's watersSpain, which has been challenging British sovereignty on the Rock for 300 years, has now laid claim under an EU 'environmental protection' scheme to most of the 20 square miles of British territorial waters that surround the Gibraltar peninsula .
The Rock has been a key strategic outpost since it was ceded by Spain to Britain in perpetuity under the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. The sea surrounding the Rock is designated British Gibraltar Territorial Waters.
But the Spanish have convinced the European Commission to include most of it in a new environmental zone, to be maintained by Spain. All but one small segment of the British zone - two square miles in the north-western corner - has been swallowed up by the Estrecho Oriental, a 69-square-mile marine conservation area.
Under EU law, a conservation site can only be declared by the sovereign state which owns the piece of land or sea in question. So by allowing Spain's request to include the waters around Gibraltar, European bureaucrats have tacitly recognised its possession of British territory.
Responsibilities in maintaining EU environmental zones include nature protection and the monitoring of wildlife and potential environmental threats. But there are fears that it will merely act as a cover for Spanish vessels to mount incursions into British waters.
There has already been one minor skirmish, when Spain sent the corvette Tarifa 'to inspect fishing boats' east of Gibraltar, insisting it was in Spanish waters. The armed fisheries protection vessel only retreated when the Navy sent the patrol vessel HMS Sabre to intercept it.
The Gibraltar government has lodged an application in the European Court in Luxembourg to have the new rights reversed. Chief Minister Peter Caruana said: 'Spain has usurped British sovereignty of Gibraltar waters. This is clearly wrong and unacceptable. Its actions are not an innocent mistake. There is zero basis in international law for its position.'
The Foreign Office has also expressed alarm. A spokesman said: 'We do not recognise the validity of their designation.'
The vast majority of Gibraltans oppose any return to Spanish sovereignty. In the 1950s the Spanish dictator Franco ratcheted up claims over the Rock, partly in response to a visit of the Queen in 1954 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of its capture. For the next 30 years Spain restricted movement between Gibraltar and Spain.
A referendum in 1967 found 12,138 wanted it to remain a British territory with just 44 voting to return to Spanish sovereignty.
In 2002 proposals for joint sovereignty were drawn up, but another referendum rejected the plan by 98.97 per cent.
Popular Alliance Comment:
The nerve of the Spanish who have been desperate to get their hands on Gibraltar for 300 years. Let's wait till the British Government is in total meltdown and the media is focusing on other issues. Let's use the EU who are far more "In bed" with the Spanish than they ever have or will be with the UK. Then let's try by stealth to use some EU law to acquire it.
Well Spain can get stuffed. They can have Gibraltar when over 60% of the population want to be part of Spain and not before. Let's hope this feeble government can get it's act together and send an uncompromising message to Spain and the EU.
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