MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
UK/Gibraltar dossier on queues at the Spanish border to make a complaint at the EC
Long queues ‘politically motivated’ have stalled border traffic with cars having to wait for hours The Foreign office and the Gibraltar government confirmed they are collecting a dossier on politically motivated queues at the Spain/Gibraltar border with a view to making a formal complaint to the European Commission.
“The UK’s Government’s position is that these delays are unjustified and unacceptable; and the imposition of border controls for politically-motivated reasons is in contravention of EU law,” said the Foreign Office.
The Foreign Office declared that these delays impact on the prosperity and wellbeing of people in both Gibraltar and Spain. “We understand that the majority of vehicles crossing the border in recent days are Spanish It is striking that the Spanish authorities are willing to put in place these illegitimate and disproportionate measures regardless of the impact on their own community.”
“We are collecting evidence of these politically motivated border delays in collaboration with the Government of Gibraltar. This evidence will be submitted to the European Commission to investigate these illegitimate and disproportionate border delays as soon as possible. Our main concern is to restore people’s basic right to freedom of movement and enable a return to normal operations at the border. We have made this clear to the Spanish Government.”
The UK firmly believes that our differences with Spain on Gibraltar should be resolved by political means, not through illegitimate and disproportionate measures such as the border delays we have seen in recent days.
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Read all commentsAnd if, somehow, the EC decide that it is legal. Or if somehow it's legal to charge British and Gibraltarians but not Spaniards, as their foreign minister seems to be suggesting, well...
Aug 10th, 2013 - 04:46 pm 0Immediate implementation of stringent searches on all vehicles (especially freight vehicles) arriving from Spain, to the point of dismantling them on the dockside - after all the tobacco tax rates are that much lower in Spain, so smuggling must be a possibility and must be clamped down upon.
An introduction of a £50 entry charge and a £50 exit charge on every passenger going to Spain, which will have two effects:
1) Raising an awful lot of money that can be used to compensate the British fishing industry and the Gibraltarian government.
2) It might very well encourage tourists to seek other holiday destinations. Greece is nice this time of year, and they aren't harassing anywhere, while they could use the tourist money even more than Spain do. And by doing that we're even being “good Europeans” and spending in a deserving country that has fallen on economic hard times.
I guess any toll charge applied by the spainsh to harm gibraltar could also be applied by the UK government for each passenger travelling to spain, No?
Aug 10th, 2013 - 05:02 pm 0Im sure that will force a huge majority of tourists to one of many alternative destinations, leaving the argentine wannabes pretty much fucked, smiles all round.
but why stop there maybe the EC should apply the same charge to spain, our very own Hispanic north korea in Europe, fucking clowns.
“UK/Gibraltar dossier on queues at the Spanish border to make a complaint at the EC”
Aug 10th, 2013 - 06:12 pm 0Good luck with that!! The whole of the EC and EU is so anti- British, there is no point in complaining to them...
What we should be doing is engaging in a little “Gun boat” diplomacy of our own.. ramp up the pressure, 'cos I bet you a pounds to Euro's that it will be the yellow bellied Spanish that blink first.
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