MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

European Commission rejects use of designation for territorial disputes

EC Environment commissioner Stavros Dimas

In a parliamentary response on the issue of Gibraltar waters last week, the European Commission said EU environmental designations should not be used to resolve territorial disputes, reports the Gibraltar Chronicle.

Speaking on the Commission’s behalf, Environment commissioner Stavros Dimas added that the EC had no powers to intervene in such a dispute. Mr Dimas was responding to a question from South West England and Gibraltar’s Liberal Democrat MEP, Graham Watson, who had asked for details following the row over Gibraltar’s territorial waters.

Mr Watson wanted to know how officials in Brussels came to approve a Spanish proposal to designate British Gibraltar waters as one of Spain’s EU-protected sites.

The move was described as unacceptable by both the Gibraltar and UK governments, who saw it as a direct affront to British sovereignty of those waters.

In his response Mr Dimas said the designation had followed the established procedures and said all Member States concerned had been consulted before the listings were approved.

Britain had already come under flack in Gibraltar for failing to stop the Spanish proposal. Mr Dimas, without being explicit, echoed that sentiment in his response.

“The Commission’s decision of December 2008 to update the Mediterranean list received a favourable opinion from all the Member States present at the meeting of the Habitats Committee,” he said. But the environment commissioner also sent a clear signal that EU nature rules could not be used for other purposes.

“The Commission has no competence in relation to territorial disputes between Member States and does not consider that the designation process under the Habitats Directive is the appropriate tool with which to resolve them,” Mr Dimas said.

The row over the EU designation of Gibraltar waters is now the subject of legal action.

Gibraltar, backed by the UK, will argue before a European court that the EC’s decision to approve the Spanish designation was wrong in international and European law and was based on errors of fact.

It will ask the European court to annul the Spanish designation where it overlaps British waters and order Brussels to pay costs. The Commission will defend its decision to approve the designation and, in doing so, will be backed by Spain.