Spain's Guardia Civil honored two members of the Royal Gibraltar Police for cross-frontier work in helping combat money laundering and drug trafficking operations.
Britain cannot allow Spain to continue to ignore international law and bully Gibraltar, said MP Andrew Rosindell following the latest incursion in Gibraltar waters, this time a Spanish Customs crew that actually fired shots to a British-Gibraltarian fishing cruise.
Two uniformed Spanish Guardia Civil officers attended the Queen’s Birthday Parade in Gibraltar, in a development that is unprecedented in recent times.
Spanish law enforcement officers are invited by The Convent every year to the event but, on the occasions they have attended in the past, they have done so in civilian clothing.
The UK Ministry of Defense has played down claims that the British Government is to send additional military personnel to Gibraltar. The announcement follows reports in the Daily Express over the weekend that the British Government was to deploy additional sailors to Gibraltar to allow the Royal Navy to operate patrol boats 24 hours a day to challenge “nightmare incursions by Spanish fishing trawlers.”
Spanish government vessels have unlawfully entered British territorial waters around Gibraltar more than 600 times since the start of 2013, according to official figures. There were 496 incursions in 2013 and 112 in the first three months of 2014, the figures disclosed by Foreign Secretary William Hague revealed.
British Labor MP Jim Dobbin has filed an early day motion calling on the House of Commons to condemn the actions of the Spanish Guardia Civil crew that led to “an armed stand-off” with Royal Navy vessels in Gibraltar waters last week.
The storm of protest in Spain over Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo’s speech to the UN this week showed no sign of letting up with a fresh round of political complaints and even the threat of legal action, according to the Gibraltar Chronicle.
The Spanish Ambassador in London was summoned to the Foreign Office in relation to delays at the Gibraltar border this weekend.
Drivers were forced to queue for hours in blistering heat as Spain tightened its border controls with Gibraltar in the wake of the standoff at sea on Thursday.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has told Chief Minister Fabian Picardo that Britain “will not compromise on sovereignty” in the face of Spanish incursions into British Gibraltar territorial waters.