MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Waters dispute with Spain, Gibraltar’s main challenge in 2009

Chief Minister also underlined Minister Morations visit, the first Spanish Foreign Minister ever to visit Gibraltar

Gibraltar Chief Minister Peter Caruana said this week that the biggest challenge of all in 2009 was that over the sovereignty of Gibraltar’s waters represented by Spain’s designation of areas of these as an EU environmental protection zone, and the EU Commission inclusion of it in the official EU list.

In his New Year address, Caruana said that the Gibraltar Government had acted immediately to mount a legal challenge to this move in the European Court, as soon as it became aware of it. The UK itself had missed its deadline for bringing its own legal challenge, but has intervened in the case in support of Gibraltar.

“Under EU procedures there will soon be a new opportunity for the UK to bring its own, separate legal challenge, and it is absolutely vital that it does so because Spain and the EU Commission are challenging our right to bring our own action, and if they succeed then our legal case will fail before it even gets heard in court. UK and Gibraltar would be protected from this very serious position if the UK starts its own direct legal case. It must therefore do so” said Caruana.

He recalled that it had become necessary to protect Gibraltar’s position arising from this matter in the context of the then forthcoming Ministerial meeting in Gibraltar of the Trilateral Forum, the agenda for which included co-operation in relation to those very same waters, in respect of both maritime matters and environmental protection.

“This specific objective was fully achieved by securing an acknowledgement from Spain in the formal communiqué that the designation of our waters has no implications for, and thus does not change the sovereignty, jurisdiction and control of the waters, which accordingly remain as they had been before the designation,” he said.

Mr Caruana said that this language fully achieved the stated and intended objective of politically neutralising the possibility that the EU environmental designation by Spain of our waters had of itself advanced Spain’s sovereignty position.

“While obviously not defeating her longstanding and misconceived claim over the waters, Spain’s acknowledgement that the designation had not advanced its sovereignty position or prejudiced ours, enabled cooperation talks to proceed safely for us”.

Regarding the Trilateral Forum, it continues to work well and to achieve good progress, said Caruana. He highlighted 2009 seeing Gibraltar hosting the Ministerial Meeting of the Forum, with the historic and welcome visit of Miguel Angel Moratinos, the first Spanish Foreign Minister ever to visit Gibraltar.

“There will regrettably always be adverse incidents because the parties still have serious disagreements on very important issues. Of course, every such incident is gleefully seized on by the Opposition to undermine the Forum and attempt to show that it has failed. But, there is no denying the Forum’s success and value. Quite apart from the architecture of the Forum itself, the facts of success speak for themselves” concluded Gibraltar’s Chief Minister.