Spain plans to fine bunkering companies operating in Gibraltar waters sums of up to two million Euros and the Finance ministry was planning to ban the sale of petroleum products to the Rock, particularly since they pay no VAT.
Brussels will determine whether the 70 cement blocks dumped in the Gibraltar bay are legal or not, according to the European Union spokesperson Olivier Bailly who anticipated an EC fact finding mission can be expected next month to visit the controversy area.
Spain will only discuss about fisheries with the UK after the blocks dumped into the Gibraltar bay have been removed, said foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo in a Sunday interview with the right wing newspaper La Razon.
Britain rejected a Spanish proposal to hold one-on-one talks over the sovereignty of the contested British overseas territory (BOT) of Gibraltar after Spain issued an appeal for such negotiations to be held as soon as possible.
The following column was published on Tuesday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal displaying the Spanish position in the current dispute with Gibraltar and the border controls.
The column is credited to Jose Manuel García-Margallo who is Spain’s Foreign minister.
Gibraltar opposition Leader Daniel Feetham has urged a cooling down of the language in the row with Spain and confirmed that the GSD Opposition would agree to quadripartite talks with Spain so long as the Gibraltar delegation retained its own separate voice, vote and veto.
Spain’s King Juan Carlos told Margaret Thatcher’s most senior official at least twice that “it was not in fact in the interests of Spain to recover Gibraltar soon, even if it were possible.” Instead he agreed with the United Kingdom that it was for Spain to make herself attractive to the Gibraltarian people.
Spain’s Foreign affairs ministry Director General Ignacio Ibañez confirmed that Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo, would raise Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands with his Argentine counterpart, Hector Timerman, during a visit to Buenos Aires in early September.
Britain is likely to win a case against Spain over the imposition of excessive border queues and could get an interim order to ease the controls from the European Court of Justice said Professor Damian Chalmers an expert in EU law at LSE and who is a Jean Monnet Chair and was editor of the European Law Review and EU Jurist.
European stock markets mostly rose on Wednesday after official data showed that the Euro zone had finally escaped from a record 18-month recession. The Euro-zone climbed out of recession with surprisingly strong growth of 0.3 percent in the second quarter led by Germany and France, announced the European Union.