The Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce has welcomed the announcement of new air links to the UK and to Morocco, highlighting the tourism and business opportunities they will create. In a statement, it said the addition of the Gibraltar-Bristol route would open up additional markets for visitors, both business people and tourists, from Wales and the south west of England.
Representatives of the European Union (EU) and Morocco that make up the Joint Committee managed to solve all the practical issues which have been pending since the bilateral fisheries agreement was signed and that prevented the African country from issuing the fishing licenses.
Spain’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs is urging Morocco and Portugal to block the sale of rocks to Gibraltar, according to the online publication El Confidencial. The website reported at the weekend that the ministry headed by Jose Manuel García-Margallo had initiated contacts with “friendly countries” in a bid to stop Gibraltar’s “expansionist” plans.
About 150 sub-Saharan migrants managed to enter Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla on Monday after a group of 250 stormed a barbed-wire border fence, the Spanish Interior Ministry said. Spanish media showed video of those who got over the fence running down the streets of Melilla shouting “Barca, Barca!” as they headed toward a detention centre.
As negotiations over Spain’s entry to the European Union grew tense in 1983, King Juan Carlos twice told British officials it was not to Spain’s advantage to recover Gibraltar, according to newly declassified documents released to the UK National Archives.
The British Government drew a historic parallel between Gibraltar and Spain’s north African enclaves in a parliamentary response this week. While recognizing that Ceuta and Melilla had a different constitutional relationship with Spain, Europe Minister David Lidington said the enclaves and Gibraltar both stemmed from “a distinct set of historical circumstances.”
Argentine President Cristina Fernández left on Tuesday for Russia to attend the G20 summit to begin next Thursday at the Constantine Palace in Saint Petersburg. The president flew on her office’s Tango 01 to Morocco where she changed aircraft to avoid any possible injunction from hedge funds on the presidential transport.
Spain’s King Juan Carlos told Margaret Thatcher’s most senior official at least twice that “it was not in fact in the interests of Spain to recover Gibraltar soon, even if it were possible.” Instead he agreed with the United Kingdom that it was for Spain to make herself attractive to the Gibraltarian people.
The cruise ship “Nieuw Amsterdam” on its present voyage catering to gay clients docked Sunday in Malaga, south of Spain, after Moroccan authorities prohibited it from making its scheduled port of call in Casablanca.