MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Spain conditions talks with UK to removal of cement blocks from Gibraltar bay
Spain will only discuss about fisheries with the UK after the blocks dumped into the Gibraltar bay have been removed, said foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo in a Sunday interview with the right wing newspaper La Razon. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesWell Spain you won't be seeing me or my spending money for a while. Portugal every bit as nice and needs the money too.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 03:34 am - Link - Report abuse 0Conditions are unacceptable! We need to invade Spain and change the government.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 03:37 am - Link - Report abuse 0The UK is quite happy with the status quo of Gibraltar as a BOT.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 03:47 am - Link - Report abuse 0So Spain can make all the conditions it wants.
Spain should, as a gesture of goodwill, withdraw from Ceuta, Meliilla, Alhucemas etc., Oilvença, Catalonia, the Valencian areas / Balearics, Galicia and the Basque country, and leave Rajoy (thereby a foreigner) to Asturias in his own juices.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 03:48 am - Link - Report abuse 0Then La Linea might secede from Spain in hope of some prosperity.
There are some lovely Portuguese wines these days, far better to support an old ally than a country with a bearded Cauldillito. Soon to book my holiday in Gib, stirred my interest with all this nonsense from a Frangoist (sic.) junta.
What an amateur. You only demand as a precondition what the other side intend doing anyway. Demanding a condition the other side won't meet means you either a) can be blamed if there's no talks, or b) look weak because you had to back down regarding your precondition. For a chip-wrapper quote Margallo is now a hostage to fortune.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 03:56 am - Link - Report abuse 0“But the minister also expressed perplexity at British Prim Minister David Cameron’s threats “to adopt legal measures” against Spain”
Aug 26th, 2013 - 04:14 am - Link - Report abuse 0Why? Has common sense overloadedn his tiny mind?
I wonder where Spain got the idea of demanding something that cannot be complied with. The UK should demand that Spain remove their blocks first as a gesture of goodwill, like that is going to happen, or demand the removal of restrictions at the border. We could of course put our own customs our side of the border or do we already have them?
Aug 26th, 2013 - 04:24 am - Link - Report abuse 0Holidays are already booked - thats why tourist numbers are still up.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 04:32 am - Link - Report abuse 0Wait until the tabloids start biting. The clock is ticking Spain. The pirates are here to protect our interests.
Why would they remove them ? After the Barbary Macaques these blocks are set to be Gibraltars next biggest tourist attraction.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 04:36 am - Link - Report abuse 0@9
Aug 26th, 2013 - 05:27 am - Link - Report abuse 0I can see them now, scuba divers all waving the Union Jack and of course our Scottish friends waving the Saltire, LOL
This current bunch of clowns running Spain have no idea just how childish and spiteful they are appearing to the rest of the world.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 06:24 am - Link - Report abuse 0They need to be reminded that WHATEVER Gibraltar does in IT'S own territorial waters are NO BUSINESS of Spain.
And they are now appearing worried that the UK is taking legal action against them.
This has never happened in the past, and they don't know what to do about it, hence the 'offer' of talks, but with a completely unacceptable pre-condition.
The UK government couldn't order the removal of the blocks, even if they were inclined to agree to the Spanish terms, as Gibraltar is SELF-GOVERNING.
This concept appears to be completely lost on Spain, that in Gibraltar it isn't the UK calling the shots, it is the Gibraltarians.
Poor, inexperienced Garcia-Margallo. He and Rajoy have no idea what they have started. I have written to Gibraltar's Chief Minister suggesting a course of action. None of it “good” for Spain. It includes sacking 10,000 Spanish migrant workers. As brasherboot says, tourist numbers remain much the same because holidays are already booked. The blocks will NOT be removed. In fact, I recommend laying more. Sand etc. can be dredged from the seabed or imported from Morocco. A new Gibraltar-Tangier Gibraltar-owned fast ferry service. I am ashamed of the British government. It has a legal responsibility to defend and protect Gibraltar and its people. And it is failing.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 07:42 am - Link - Report abuse 0Spain relies on the Treaty of Utrecht to say that Gibraltar has no territorial waters. Bad news for Spain. The Treaty doesn't mention Spanish territorial waters either! We should do to Spain what Spain does to Gibraltar. And sink the Spanish poachers!
We're going to Greece next year, just booked it after scrubbing going to Majorca.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 08:15 am - Link - Report abuse 0“no way Jose!”
I see Gollum Lite is working his way down to the Original Gollum's standards in time for their love-fest in The Dark Country next month.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 08:58 am - Link - Report abuse 0Perhaps we will see a new “initiative” from Gollum Lite when he returns.
I can't wait to laugh at it.
Perhaps he will ask Gollum The Original to visit Spain and lend him his support. But it won't be any good because he hasn't got any bollocks to put in it and the elastic has stretched anyway!
Err “no love lost” may not have the meaning that you think :-)
Aug 26th, 2013 - 10:28 am - Link - Report abuse 0(I) Maps freely available on the Junta de Andalucía's website show that shellfish fisheries designated by 'Spain' in the Bay of Gibraltar clearly respect the boundaries of British Gibraltar's territorial waters.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 12:07 pm - Link - Report abuse 0http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=30462
(II) After the Second World War, according to the Helsinki Agreement, frontiers became fixed and cannot be moved. The airport was already in place at that time so all this Spanish fuss about the airport being on so-called 'neutral ground' is irrelevant.
The cement blocks could be useful; convert them into tasteful underwater patio; hold talk in diving suits, in situ, so that everyone has an on -the -spot idea of what this about. Blocks for blockheads.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 12:59 pm - Link - Report abuse 011 LEPRecon don't say that because they will say that we have given Gibraltar away and the treaty is over. We should attack now.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 01:42 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I found something interesting. Apparently 30 years ago there were no fish where the reef is now, and Gibraltar built up a reef made up of old boats on an area that was just flat sand with no life. Fish and sealife have been attracted to the boat built reef thus creating a fishing ground that was not previously there. Though one side of me would not want to remove this sealife/ecology created by the Gibraltarians-if they were to remove the concrete blocks and the boat built reef laid down over the last 30 years (by Gib, not Spain), there would be no fish.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 02:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Either the reef should stay or the WHOLE reef should go.
First Gib should replace its trade with Spain through Morrocco, and the UK should support Catalonia's request for independence.
After all the UK has sanctioned the Scottish independence referendum.
Ah, blackmail,
Aug 26th, 2013 - 02:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Nasty words from a nasty man,
Pity then it will get Spain nothing but trouble, and condemnation
And once again Britain will walk from this tall as before,
Still,
Spain could always try the conciliation prize and claim Andorra.
Lolol
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The Spanish ought to be congratulated for their contribution to the creation of ship-reefs following the Battle of Trafalgar.
Aug 26th, 2013 - 03:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0L'Aigle, Algésiras, Berwick, Bucentaure, Fougueux, Intrépide, Redoutable, and Swiftsure; the Argonauta, Bahama, Monarca, Neptuno, San Agustín, San Ildefonso, San Juan Nepomuceno, Santísima Trinidad, and Santa Ana, Achille, Intrépide, San Augustín, L'Aigle, Berwick, Fougueux, and Monarca .... my, they would have made a tidy reef !
I know the Spanish king wasn't really trying to create a reef, but I guess 22 Ships-of-the-Line would have attracted a damned sight more fish than 70 little blocks of concrete.
Rajoy should be congratulated for his reef-making elsewhere,
and should be advised that the Royal Navy would be pleased to help him achieve a new scattered Algeciras Bay ship-reef.
It would be Round 4 in the Bay, and the little RN sub that surfaced there today shows which ships will be forming the reef.
Perhaps gibralter should claim the whole bay,
Aug 27th, 2013 - 03:17 pm - Link - Report abuse 0she may not want it, or get it, but it would be fun listening to the spannish crying.lol
I look forward to Gibraltars inevitable fail in this whole little journey.
Aug 27th, 2013 - 03:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0A decision for Spain will see a yapping Gibraltar.
A decision against Spain will see Spain wither drawing out long term or plain old disregarding any EU order, or coming up with something new.
If it weren't for the facts that Spain disputes those waters and that cement was used one could literally say that Gibraltar took a dump in its own pool.
Enjoy all the benefits of the “reef” guys.
Vestige your post makes no sense.
Aug 27th, 2013 - 07:44 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The status quo suits Gibraltar. It's rich and prosperous and not part of Spain.
“A decision against Spain will see Spain wither drawing out long term or plain old disregarding any EU order, or coming up with something new.”
There's nothing new. Spain has closed the border before. Spain has so far not done anything new.
The biggest difference with past actions is that Spain is in the EU and broke and destitute.
Besides Gibraltar is already negotiating further supplies from Portugal and morocco
Aug 28th, 2013 - 02:24 pm - Link - Report abuse 0To get round the ban.
What will Spain do then we wonder ?? ..
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