Roger Boyes, Diplomatic Editor of The Times, has criticised the recent tactics by Spain and urges the conservative government to return to a more positive approach to the Gibraltar question. Likewise by invoking the Falklands and making common anti-British cause with Argentina the Spanish PM “has burnt his boats with British PM David Cameron”.
Britain is likely to win a case against Spain over the imposition of excessive border queues and could get an interim order to ease the controls from the European Court of Justice said Professor Damian Chalmers an expert in EU law at LSE and who is a Jean Monnet Chair and was editor of the European Law Review and EU Jurist.
Britain warned Spain it might take legal action to try to force Madrid to abandon tighter controls at the border with the contested British overseas territory of Gibraltar in what it called an unprecedented step against a European ally.
Spanish Foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo will be visiting Argentina next September to meet with his peer Hector Timerman to discuss the Gibraltar and Falklands/Malvinas sovereignty disputes and consider the possibility of a joint front.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he hopes for dialogue with Britain soon regarding Gibraltar, but added that until talks take place his government would continue to consider unilateral measures to defend Spanish interests. He said the country will take “all legal measures” to protect its interests in Gibraltar.
The Foreign office and the Gibraltar government confirmed they are collecting a dossier on politically motivated queues at the Spain/Gibraltar border with a view to making a formal complaint to the European Commission.
Greater Gabbard wind farm, which is reportedly the second largest offshore wind farm in the world, costing £1.3 billion and generating enough clean electricity to power over half a million homes, was officially opened off the British coast of Suffolk by the Energy and Business Minister Michael Fallon.
Academics from the British Army Officer School, Sandhurst, presented a course in Counter Insurgency Operations in Santiago to members of the Chilean military, special forces and intelligence, reports the Foreign Office.
Gibraltar Government House issued a statement following Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and PM David Cameron exchange and later intervention of foreign ministers Garcia-Margallo and William Hague to find a way to de-escalate the situation by reducing measures at the Gib/Spain border.
This week’s incursion of President Cristina Fernandez at the United Nations Security Council, (because during August Argentina holds the rotating presidency of the council9 caught the attention of The Economist in a brief piece under the heading “Argentina, the Falklands and the UN: self determined”.