MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gibraltar criticizes latest incident at artificial reef; Picardo opens window for talks

As an act of good faith, Picardo will propose a change in the law so that the 59 Spanish boats can fish again in Gibraltar

Gibraltar has strongly criticised Spanish police for sending divers to inspect an artificial reef in waters claimed by the British territory. Governor Sir Adrian Johns said the action constituted a serious violation of UK sovereignty over Gibraltar.

He said it was particularly unhelpful in the light of the current row over fishing rights which has led to strict border checks and long car queues imposed by the Guardia Civil.

Spain says the reef is damaging its fishing industry. Last month, the government of Gibraltar dropped 74 concrete blocks onto the sea bed to create an artificial reef designed to reinvigorate marine life.

Pictures aired in the Spanish media show Guardia Civil divers examining the blocks with measuring tape. The divers took Spanish flags with them then posed for underwater photos, which were later shared on Twitter.

The Gibraltar government has defended its right to erect the reef, and accused Spain of “making a serious incursion into British Gibraltar Territorial Waters” and adding to existing tensions.

The government in Madrid disputes Gibraltar's ownership of the waters off its coast, and accuses its neighbour of deliberately damaging the Spanish fishing trade.

An offer from Gibraltar's chief minister to allow 59 local Spanish fishermen to return to the area had been made before the images of the police divers emerged.

The Gibraltar government said in a statement: “Her Majesty's Government of Gibraltar notes the incident of executive action taken by the Guardia Civil in British Gibraltar Territorial Waters in the area of the new artificial reef.

”The matter of this serious incursion will not assist in de-escalating the present tensions.”

The European Commission is to send a fact-finding mission to Gibraltar to investigate controls at the border. It follows tensions between Spain and the UK over extra border checks on the Spanish side which have caused lengthy traffic delays. Britain says the checks break EU free movement rules but Spain says Gibraltar has not controlled smuggling.

Royal Navy warship HMS Westminster docked in Gibraltar last week in what the British government said was a long-planned deployment of a number of vessels to the Mediterranean and the Gulf.

In Friday’s edition, (before this last incident), Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said that Gibraltar could open its waters to Spanish fishermen again by October.

“As an act of good faith ... I will propose that parliament introduces a change in the law so that the 59 boats can fish again based on their historical fishing practices” Mr Picardo told El Mundo in the interview. British media took this as a bid by Gibraltar to ease the on-going tensions surrounding the creation of the reef in British waters around Gibraltar.

A Spanish Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted by The Times as saying that Mr Picardo’s compromise proposal fell short. “We still have the obstacle of the artificial reef. We are open to dialogue, but confidence has been lost with Gibraltar and will not be regained until that reef is withdrawn.”

Alfonso Alonso, parliamentary spokesman of the ruling conservative Popular Party, criticised Mr Picardo for having “started” the four-week row. “What he should do is take away those concrete blocks. We didn’t invent those, it was Gibraltar,” he said.

In a statement published yesterday the Gibraltar Government made clear that it is committed to the Trilateral Forum for dialogue as well as to the potential parallel “ad hoc” dialogue which Foreign Secretary William Hague proposed last year and “No 6 has supported”. But it has rejected Spanish Foreign Jose Garcia Margallo’s proposal to create a quadrilateral forum.

CM Picardo told the newspaper he is convinced Spaniards will realise that Gibraltar is not a “pirates’ den”, but a place where 30,000 honest, hard-working people live, people who open their hearts to the Spanish residents of the Campo de Gibraltar, and that what they want is to live together peacefully and be an economic driver for the region.

According to El Mundo Picardo was setting out to assure Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Garcia Margallo that he is “open” to dialogue “for the good of the people on both sides of the border” and that the civilised thing is to turn to a court to settle differences, not to force a child or elderly person to queue for eight hours.

It quoted Picardo as suggesting that by last week of October, the 59 boats could be fishing again in the disputed waters.

This decision, he confirms, “has nothing to do with the pressure Spain is applying at the border or with its threats at a political and official level”. He is doing it now because he does not want Garcia- Margallo’s threats to “make us softer nor to make us harden our stance.”

“The fishing guilds have never been a target for the Government of Gibraltar. We told them to fish according to our laws. And we have always said that if there was a need to make a slight modification to Gibraltarian law, we would do so. I have said so in Parliament. The time for that has now come. Some boats, which use certain methods that are currently illegal, will be able to come and fish like before. This only includes the residents of Gibraltar and the members of the Guilds of La Línea [53 boats] or Algeciras [6 boats], which have fished here historically using traditional methods”.