Catching up on the Gibraltar story

The UK has sent HMS Westminster to Gibraltar or, to be precise, to take part in the Cougar '13 naval exercise. This seems to signal to the media that the situation is getting more tense. Meanwhile, Spain is bringing out the heavy artillery: it is threatening to take its case to the UN where it will have one ally at least, Argentina.

Earlier, newspaper El País said Spain could take the matter to the International Court of Justice, the UN General Assembly or the UN Security Council, where Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel García Margallo will seek support from Argentina, which is serving a term.

However, other players have entered the game. We hear from EUObserver that Catalan separatists have expressed solidarity with the people of Gibraltar.

Party leader Alfred Bosch told Gibraltar:"Your freedom is our freedom."

Quite so. May I call his and everybody else's attention to this blog's title. Meanwhile, there is a possibility that Morocco might start stirring in the matters of Ceuta and Melilla, which are inexplicably continue to be Spanish possessions.

Samir Bennis, a Moroccan and political adviser on Arab affairs at the UN in New York, said Spain operated “double standards” by dismissing Moroccan sovereignty claims over Ceuta and Melilla as unfounded while pursuing its own claim over Gibraltar.

He gives a kind of an explanation for this anomalous situation:

“What mattered most during the Sixties and Seventies when such things were discussed was for Morocco to recover its territories in the south, including the Spanish protectorate of the Western Sahara,” Mr Bennis, who has published books on the subject, told the British newspaper.

“That was cleverly exploited by Spain who persuaded Morocco not to take the matter of Ceuta and Melilla up with the UN but agree to make it a strictly bilateral issue between Spain and Morocco.”

Will the UN now take up the matter of Ceuta and Melilla? Will it take up the matter of Western Sahara, whose people might not want to be part of Morocco?

How can this happen in the EU?

I am shocked, I tell you, shocked. The European Union was going to bring peace and plenty to all European nations; milk and honey would flow through the land; and old enmities would die. Let's not discuss the problems of milk subsidies and the apparent shortage of honey bees - let us concentrate on those old enmities. The old enmity that is between Spain and the UK and revolves round the rock of Gibraltar.

It cannot have escaped the notice of this blog's readers that the Spanish government is at it again. To be absolutely accurate, it is trying to deflect attention from various domestic problems such as "recession and corruption allegations that have led to a collapse in the popularity of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy" by beating the ward drums over Gibraltar.

On Sunday, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo warned that "the midday break" for the U.K. was over, a reference to what he called ineffective policies in defense of Spanish interests by the country's previous government, which left office in December 2011.

The immediate "cause" of the dispute is the artificial reef being built by the Gibraltarians, which, they maintain, will attract fish and make fishing easier and which, the Spanish maintain, will make their fishermen's lives more difficult. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said that

Spain was mulling a €50 border-crossing fee and tax investigations of thousands of Gibraltarians who own property in Spain. A border fee would affect tourists and Gibraltarians who cross the border for work.

Gibraltar has complained to the European Commission over what it says are unreasonable controls at the border, saying they violate European Union rules on free circulation.

Spain was also considering closing airspace to planes heading for the airport in Gibraltar and changing rules to wring taxes from on-line gaming companies based in Gibraltar, he said.

Whether the people of Spain will be taken in by this carefully timed sabre rattling remains to be seen. For the moment,

"The prime minister has made clear that the U.K. government will meet its constitutional commitments to the people of Gibraltar and will not compromise on sovereignty," the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office said in a statement Sunday. "Our differences with Spain on Gibraltar will be resolved by political means through our relationship as EU partners, not through disproportionate measures such as the border delays we have seen over the past week."

But, surely, this is not the sort of thing that should be happening in the EU, anyway.