Foreign Affairs Committee tells Foreign Office: TIME TO GET OFF THE FENCE

Foreign Affairs Committee tells Foreign Office: TIME TO GET OFF THE FENCE
PANORAMA EXCLUSIVE - http://www.panorama.gi/

by JOE GARCIA

The UK foreign affairs committee report on Gibraltar will be published tomorrow, when the Foreign Office will be told that it is time 'to get off the fence.' In other words, the UK government will be told to take action to resolve the year-long problem with Spain.
It explains why the Minister for Europe David Lidington is rushing to Gibraltar today, to be here when the report is published.

After a year of dilly-dallying as to whether or not to come to Gibraltar, Mr Lidington takes this sudden decision - and people must have been wondering why.

What makes the visit even more suspect and untimely is that it falls on the very day when the Gibraltar Government will be presenting its Budget, always an all-important announcement in the political calendar when other distractions are not encouraged.

When the Chief Minister, our equivalent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on such a day, says he welcomes the visit on Budget Day, because the minister will get to know how well the economy is doing, it is simply one government playing ball with the other, because Lidington does not have to come to Gibraltar on Budget Day to be briefed on what is the state of the economy.

But he is arriving today and no doubt he will try to provide a semblance of 'action' by going to the frontier and being shown why Britannia no longer rules the waves out in bay.

WHAT FOR?

It is not that he will not be welcomed as appropriate, but that when the prospect of a visit has surfaced in the past, the Gibraltar reaction has been: What for, to repeat all those hackneyed words and phrases as a cover up to real action?

It will be recalled that when Lidington, who is regarded in the corridors of power in No.6 as a good friend of Gibraltar, went before the Foreign Affairs Committee to give his evidence for the report now being published, he was rewarded with quite a grilling from the MPs - so one does not have to be a political luminary to gauge that the final report is bound to be strongly worded and highlight the kind of sensitive issues that FCO ministers and mandarins would rather not hear about.

The heading of the report says it all: Time to get off the fence.

One would hope that the report will not only recite what has gone wrong in UK foreign policy over Gibraltar, but will ask how it is going to be put right.

Will it be made clear that Gibraltar is not to blame for the hostile anti-Gibraltar policy unleashed by the PP Spanish Government - and without any further procrastination unfold what the UK intends to do about what it has long described as unacceptable and disproportionate frontier queues, unlawful incursions of British Gibraltar Territorial Waters and other unfriendly acts which British citizens and others in this part of the world have had to suffer and endure for so long.

How can the Foreign Office accept, even if ostensibly reluctantly, that a NATO ally and EU partner should not adhere to what was formally agreed under the Cordoba agreement; and even countenance that such behaviour should not affect the general context of Anglo-Spanish relations?

GREATER PRESSURE

And while Britain remains in the EU why doesn't it apply much greater pressure in that forum to secure justice for the European people of Gibraltar, whose rights and aspirations should also be strongly upheld by David Cameron?

Yes, as tomorrow's report will say: It is time to get off the fence.

Welcome to Gibraltar Mr Lidington - and enjoy the Budget!


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Foreign Affairs Committee report urges the UK to 'get off the fence' and stand up for Gibraltar
Spain’s behaviour towards Gibraltar is unacceptable and it’s time for the British government to get off the fence and take a tougher line. That’s the overriding message of a hard-hitting, 60-page report drawn up by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons and published today. The Committee makes a series of recommendations that include taking Spain to court if necessary, and making the UK’s support for Spanish aims on the international stage - such as the ambition to join the United Nations’ Security Council - dependent on improvements to the situation in Gibraltar. The report castigates the Spanish government for the border delays and the maritime incursions into British Gibraltar Territorial Waters, but it also criticises the UK for its lack of robustness and for how long it takes before delivering diplomatic protests to Spain.
It expresses deep concern about the dramatic increase in maritime incursions in British Gibraltarian Territorial Waters and the “hostile” tactics of some of the vessels that conduct them. While applauding the restraint of British and Gibraltar vessels in their attempt to enforce British sovereignty, it says it’s disappointed by the Foreign Office’s practice of lodging diplomatic protests weeks after the event, thus robbing them of all force. This, it says, gives the impression of an official simply going through the motions.
The FAC report reveals that the protests constitute an “audit trail” that demonstrates the continuous exercise of British sovereignty in BGTW, should the UK ever need to prove this in an international court. But it also expresses concern that in carrying out this policy, the British government focuses more on the long-term need for an audit trail than on the immediate need to register a real protest with the Spanish authorities. Accordingly it recommends that all protests be delivered within a maximum of seven days.
The Spanish Ambassador to London was summoned five times in the last two years to protest over Gibraltar issues. That’s more often than the Ambassadors of Iran, North Korea and Libya and the Committee says it’s “striking” that a strong European and NATO ally should find itself in such company. It wonders whether the high number of summonses is a positive signal that the Foreign Office is taking robust action, or a sign that the measure is not working and is seen by Spain as a mere slap on the wrist. It calls on the British government to reassess the criteria for summoning the Spanish Ambassador and consider doing so more frequently. The Committee reveals that it twice invited the Ambassador to give evidence, but that he only offered a private meeting. The Committee declined, as it wanted all evidence to be on-the-record.
Besides the incursions protests, the UK has also protested another 34 times to Spain in the past three years, mostly over border delays. The Committee has “no doubt” that the border is being used as a means of coercion and says this is unacceptable. It calls on the British government to state publicly that it will take legal action against Spain in the European Court if there is little improvement in the next six months, noting that Spain had no qualms about taking legal action against the UK in 2006 on the Gibraltar Euro vote issue.
The report suggests that the border checks may actually infringe the Schengen Agreement, which only envisages minimum checks when crossing an external border and which requires the Member State to ensure the safety and smooth flow of road traffic. It notes the Gibraltar government’s intention to carry out a consultation exercise on whether Gibraltar should join Schengen and says the UK should support that review. The UK should also pursue a stronger response from the European Commission and encourage further border inspections with the minimum notice of 24 hours that is now possible following a recent change in the Schengen Code rules.
With regard to Spain’s sovereignty claim, the report says it’s undermined by Madrid’s defence of Ceuta and Melilla as being Spanish. It describes Spain’s arguments as “unconvincing” adding that it leaves Spain open to the charge of hypocrisy. The UK should robustly oppose Spanish attempts to use international institutions like the UN to further its claim, and it should revive efforts to remove Gibraltar from the UN list of non self-governing territories.
The Foreign Affairs Committee is critical of the Labour government’s attempt in 2002 to reach a joint sovereignty agreement and says the self-determination guarantee under which the UK will not even enter into a process of sovereignty talks with which the people of Gibraltar are not content should never be abandoned again. The report laments the demise of the Trilateral Process, which it describes as a high water mark in diplomatic progress over Gibraltar, and says the UK should set out what the offer of ad hoc talks made by the Foreign Secretary in 2012 consists of, and how it intends to secure talks before the next election.
It says Spain’s withdrawal from some aspects of the Cordoba Agreement was a significant backward step in relations, and the UK should ensure its EU partners are fully aware that it was the Spanish government that reneged on an agreement negotiated in good faith, under which London has paid over 70 million pounds in pensions to Spanish citizens.
While acknowledging that the UK is in a “difficult position” because 14 million British nationals visit Spain every year and one million live there, the Committee says Spain should not be able to pursue aggressive policies toward Gibraltar without consequences for its relationship with London. It notes Spain’s concerns about tobacco smuggling and the creation of the artificial reef off the runway last summer, but says these do not justify what amounts to a campaign of harassment and intimidation against Gibraltar. The UK’s approach of consistently trying to de-escalate tensions, the Committee concludes, hasn’t worked, and it’s now time for the British government, with the agreement of the government of Gibraltar, to think again about what measures can be taken to discourage Spain from exerting pressure on the Rock.
Read the full report here:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/foreign-affairs-committee/news/gibraltar-report-substantive/ 
 
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