MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Majority of Britons support government policy on Gibraltar according to Spanish poll

Support for joint sovereignty in Spain 28% and 17% in UK. Self determination, 25% in UK and 17% in Spain

The dispute over Gibraltar figures low on the list of priorities for the average Spaniard, despite widespread media coverage and the fact that it taps into common feelings of national pride and identity, according to a survey conducted by the leading Spanish think tank Real Instituto Elcano both in Spain and the UK, and released on Sunday

In the long questionnaire there was one referred to the Gibraltar sovereignty issue and resemblance with the Falklands/Malvinas dispute to which two thirds, both in UK and Spain, said there were parallels.

The survey, part of which was reproduced in the Gibraltar Chronicle found that Spaniards regarded the economic crisis, political corruption, Spanish-German bilateral relations and Spain’s influence in the EU as more important issues than the Gibraltar dispute.

Despite this, the study also found that almost two out of every three Spanish respondents supported the measures currently being applied by the Spanish Government to pile pressure on Gibraltar, while only 37% considered them inappropriate.

Spanish respondents were generally “cautious and prudent” about further pressure from Spain on Gibraltar, fearful of damaging areas of business such as British tourism. Even so, an alarming 45% of them said they would favour closing the frontier or closing Spanish airspace to flights to or from Gibraltar.

Likewise around 93% of Spanish respondents believed that the dumping of concrete blocks into the sea was a serious matter, with a similar percentage expressing the same view over allegations that Gibraltar tolerates smuggling and money laundering.

The Instituto Elcano polled 1,010 respondents in Spain and another 1,001 in the UK, all aged 18 and above and stratified by self-weighted geographical areas and quotas proportional to the country’s population, according to age and gender.

The survey was conducted over a five-day period toward the end of August and each interviewee was asked to complete an online questionnaire in their language.

“In Spain there is a strong consensus regarding the country’s claim to Gibraltar,” said Javier Noya, senior analyst on Spain’s international image and public opinion at the Madrid-based think tank.

“Furthermore, our poll suggests that this widely-held view is largely independent of respondents’ social status or education; whatever their background, a majority of Spaniards is of the view that Gibraltar belongs to Spain”

However in the UK around 60% of respondents said Gibraltar was important for their country’s national interests in the wider world, compared to 52% in Spain.

“This could be due to Spaniards being more concerned about problems other than Gibraltar,” Noya added

The survey found that 76% of British respondents said they backed the British Government’s support for Gibraltar. Asked about their preferred sovereignty status for Gibraltar, 48% of British respondents said the current British status, while the same percentage of interviewees in Spain said they would prefer Gibraltar to be Spanish.

There was also greater backing for joint sovereignty in Spain than the UK – 28% versus 17% - while a quarter of UK respondents backed Gibraltar’s right to self determination compared to 17% of those questioned in Spain.

British participants in the survey were asked whether the UK or the Gibraltarians should have the final say on Gibraltar.

“An overwhelming majority (75%) were in favour of the Gibraltarians being able to determine their future,” Noya said.

Spaniards expressed strong support for the UK to engage in bilateral talks with Spain toward decolonisation. Asked if Britain and Spain should agree on shared sovereignty, 60% in the UK said no while 62% in Spain said yes. But both sets of interviewees agreed in overwhelming terms that it was unlikely that such an agreement would ever be possible.

Drilling deeper into the results, the survey found that the older the respondent, the greater the concern over the possibility of a handover.

Another interesting aspect of the British results stemmed from education and political ideology, with university-educated respondents and those on the left more likely to entertain a transfer of sovereignty. “Paradoxically, the Spanish government’s best ally might turn out to be the British anti-colonial left” Noya said.

Irrespective of the dispute, most respondents in both Spain and Britain believed the UK and Spain enjoyed good relations.