MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gibraltar plans to purchase vessels “to put an end to Spanish incursions”

Chief Minister Peter Caruana made the announcement during budget week

The Gibraltar Government plans to boost its presence in Gibraltar’s territorial waters by purchasing larger vessels with which to enforce its jurisdiction reports the Gibraltar Chronicle. Chief Minister Peter Caruana made a brief reference to the plan during his closing address to Parliament at the end of last week’s budget session.

He said the Gibraltar Government “intends to do all that it can…to put an end to Spanish incursions,” a reference to recent incidents involving Spanish patrol boats.

Mr Caruana acknowledged that the British Government had primary responsibility for upholding and defending the sovereignty of British waters around the Rock.

“However, the Government of Gibraltar certainly has jurisdictional competences for official acts in Gibraltar waters and…we are certainly intending to upgrade our investment to make much more senior our assets to uphold them,” he said.

“Not only will that involve the installation of a new VTS system [to track ship and monitor ship movements], but it will involve the acquisition of vessels of a much more important size and capacity with which to exercise and enforce our jurisdictional competences and our statutory obligations.”

The controversy over Gibraltar’s territorial waters has faded out of the limelight but the issues at stake remain unresolved.

This week in the House of Commons, the British Government was again asked what action it was taking to challenge Spain’s designation of Gibraltar waters as an EU nature site. It followed a similar round of questions in both the Commons and the House of Lords earlier in the month.

Chris Bryant, parliamentary under-secretary at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, repeated London’s standard line on the issue since the row flared up.

“The UK has made written and oral representations to Spain and to the EU Commission at ministerial and official level,” he said.

“The UK will continue to seek opportunities to raise this matter with the Commission and Spain until such time as the issue is resolved.”

The row over the waters stems from a decision by Brussels to approve a Spanish request to list most of Gibraltar’s territorial sea - and an area of international waters too - as one of Spain’s protected sites under EU law.