Should Spain charge people for going in to Gibraltar
I was led to believe that you couldn't be charged to go to another european country, how are the spanish even considering this?
Also how are they justifying 50euros for the pleasure of going to Gibraltar.......? Why not 20 or 30 euros
Discuss?
I'm of the opinion that when Spain give Ceuta back to the Moroccans, they will be in a position to request (nicely) that we give Gibraltar to them. I'd still say no to them though!
Bear in mind that the above article is 13 years old and Spain is still rumbling about it, I still think it will be rumbling in another 13 years!
A bit like paying the toll fare to go over Dunham Bridge to get from Notts to Lincs or for going over the Humber Bridge. If they can charge from county to county, I guess they can charge from country to country.
Right or wrong, they can and do!
Unfortunately for Spain they have signed various open border treaties and rules as part of the EU. Therefore they cannot charge people to want to travel from Spain to Portugal.
They know it, but they are sabre rattling over the whole issue. My guess is that it will all die down within a week or two.
Wonder if the UK can apply a surcharge to the Airport Tax for flights heading to Spain or the Canaries?
The loss of a million or so tourists may change the Spanish Govs way of thinking. The Greeks would give them a warm welcome for sure.
J & S
The best thing to teach Spain a lesson over her bullying tactics as far as Gibraltar goes, is to threaten that unless they stop the barricading then the British Government will impose a £150 levy on every summer holiday next year to Spain. That should do the trick, as the only thing Spain has is Oranges and Tourists.
Like the UK, Gibraltar does not form part of the Schengen Area and, as a result, the border between Spain and Gibraltar is an external Schengen border through which Spain is legally obliged to perform full entrance and exit controls
Gibraltar is part of the EU, having joined the European Economic Community under the United Kingdom in 1973. Article 355(3) (ex Article 299(4)) applies the treaty to "the European territories for whose external relations a Member State is responsible", a provision which in practice only applies to Gibraltar.
Although it is part of the EU, Gibraltar is outside the customs union and VAT area and is exempted from the Common Agricultural Policy; it does not form part of the Schengen Area. As a separate jurisdiction to the UK, Gibraltar's government and parliament are responsible for the transposition of EU law into local law.
Owing to a declaration lodged by the United Kingdom with the EEC in 1982, Gibraltarians were to be counted as British nationals for the purposes of Community law. This was notwithstanding that they were not all, at the time, British citizens but many were British Overseas Territories citizens. As such Gibraltarians have enjoyed European Union citizenship from its creation by the Maastricht Treaty. All Gibraltarians have since been granted full British citizenship.
Despite their status as EU citizens resident in the EU, elections to the European Parliament were not held in Gibraltar until 2004. The inclusion resulted from the European Court of Human Rights' 1999 ruling in Matthews v. United Kingdom which deemed that Gibraltar's exclusion violated Article 3 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention on Human Rights. In the 2004 European Parliament election the territory formed part of the South West England constituency of the United Kingdom. The inclusion was unsuccessfully challenged by Spain before the European Court of Justice.
Last time I went to Gibraltar it took us ages to go through customs to get back into Spain. They do rigorous checks to ensure you only bring back the correct allowance of duty free, because it really is much cheaper to buy tobacco and alcohol there than most other (if not all) countries in Europe.
You're right Trev, it appears Spain has built 130 reefs around its coastline and environmentalists have said that they provide more sustainable habitat for fish, thereby increasing fish stocks!
Maybe Spain wants a little bit more of cash in Gibraltar and resents the taxes from there coming back to the UK therefore they are pushing the little bit of muscle they have.
I am led to beleive that the majority of people who actually cross the boarder are spaniards going to work. Maybe we, the UK Government, should close the border for a week and see how their population likes it with no money coming in.
Gib's two main industries are tourism and smuggling. By stopping people going in, they're attempting to put the squeeze on tourism. The Gib border control are hotter on people taking stuff out of Gib than the Spanish are at stopping it coming in to Spain, but the land border crossing isn't the main route for contraband, the big consignments go by sea. You can look down in the harbour and see all the fast boats and you just know a high percentage of them are for smuggling.
A high percentage of the population of La Linea work in Gib, but the Spanish government could care less about them, it's about inconveniencing the tourists.
As we've seen many times before, Governments use a bit of jingoistic sabre rattling to avert attention from domestic issues. Spain is is the shit financially and mired in political corruption.
I doubt they'll make a charge as they know they'll face huge fines for contravening EU regs, at the moment they're in a grey area and arguing due diligence, though we all know why they're doing it.
The Spanish hate the fact that Gibraltarians want to remain British, whilst hypocritically defending their ownership of Cueta and other parts of Morocco, populated by Moroccans, many of whom wish to be free of Spanish rule.
I'm sorry tyracer, whilst i am sure your comment was mischievous, that sort of action would achieve nothing.
As the UK has no aircraft carriers of its own, asking the French to deploy The Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier under the European Treaty reached between David Cameron and the previous Persident of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, would be a bridge too far. Overflying Spain without permission would be openly aggressive. Expecting other Nations to allow such flight into their territories would, I am sure, be refused point blank. The diplomatic and political overtones would be disastrous for the UK.
The UK clearly has the upper hand and the moral high ground. She has nothing to be ashamed about or to apologise for and taking precipitate action would serve no useful purpose.
