With the deadline for a decision to allow tripartite ministerial talks to take place in Gibraltar just hours away, Chief Minister Peter Caruana has made clear that, despite his deep commitment to co-operation and normalisation of relations with Spain, there will be no acceptance of the Spanish EU designation of British Gibraltar Territorial Waters.

Britain is now under pressure to join Gibraltar’s legal challenge in Luxembourg.

Royal Gibraltar Police sea patrols are expected to be stepped up for the summer, but No6 makes clear it is perfectly content with Spanish authorities having passage through Gibraltar waters and even chasing criminals in hot pursuit.

The issue now is one of standing fast on defending sovereignty and ensuring the return of the status quo as it was when the talks process first really began at Cordoba in 2006.

Difficult negotiations for talks were aggravated after it emerged that on Sunday there were at least two incidents reported to the Royal Gibraltar police in which small pleasure boats in Gibraltar waters were approached by Civil Guards seeking to exercise jurisdiction by requesting papers.

Madrid is making clear its position as regards the waters is unchanged, but it does say it wants to pursue co-operation. There has been no official comment on the warning issued from Gibraltar as regards Spanish vessels trying to police local waters.

COURT CASE

Mr Caruana also feels Britain is duty bound to join in Gibraltar’s legal action to annul the European Commission’s acceptance of the designation.

So far London has stalled, but the European Court of Justice has now published the Gibraltar case in the Journal and Britain has until August 15 to join the action.

“I think it is absolutely essential. British Ministers have told Parliament, rightly so, that they are very concerned at this usurpation of sovereignty by Spain of sovereign waters. The Directive in Article 4 states that Member States may only designate sites of community importance in their own national territory,” Mr Caruana told the Chronicle yesterday.

Answering questions he said that if Britain does not challenge Spain’s right to designate a site of community interest in British Gibraltar Territorial Waters it will, in effect, be conceding that Spain is not in breach of Article 4 and therefore British Gibraltar Territorial Waters are in Spanish national territory.

“That would be completely incompatible with the British ministers’ statements to (the UK) Parliament that they are very worried about this very serious usurpation of sovereignty. They should be very worried, it is very serious.”

INVERTED

And Mr Caruana responded to the Spanish press, which labelled his warning to boat-owners to raise the alarm if stopped in local waters by Civil Guards as an act of provocation, saying that the Spanish media were turning the issue on its head.

“I think it is turning the reality on its head in a way that is entirely self-serving for the Spanish press. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The complaint in the Spanish press is that ‘Caruana is behaving as if Gibraltar has territorial waters’. Well I don’t know of any Gibraltarian that expects me to behave as if Gibraltar did not have territorial waters.”

“The complaint of the Spanish press is that the statement (to boat owners) ‘is the statement of someone who has territorial waters, hasn’t Caruana got it into his thick skull that Gibraltar does not have territorial waters’. That is precisely the issue.”

WARNING

The Gibraltar Government statement on Monday said that “all requests by Spanish authorities within BGTW to board vessels, to produce documentation, to answer questions of any nature or to seek to enforce legislation on any subject, especially fishing and environmental laws, should be refused. Boatowners accosted in this way should immediately radio or telephone the RGP or fire off a distress flare which will result in the immediate deployment of the RGP or other Gibraltar Government maritime resources.”

Asked if that call should be coupled with more patrolling of the waters, so that the burden is not on the ordinary citizen, Mr Caruana stated that he believes that the RGP fully intends that during the summer.

SMOKIE JOE

Mr Caruana fully accepts as legitimate the right of innocent passage of the Spanish Guardia Civil or even the hot pursuit of criminals “which we would all like to see apprehended and as the Gibraltar police might itself do in Spanish waters”. He says a distinction has to be drawn between that and what happened on Sunday.

“That was a simple attempt to exercise jurisdiction in the waters which Spain has not done ever. Even Smokie Joe used to sit on the limit. Franco set the buoys to say ‘this is yours and this is mine’. And now, on the eve of co-operation on maritime issues Spain thinks it is appropriate to turn up the heat by sending in her patrol boats to do routine document checks on Gibraltar boats in Gibraltar waters. It is not I that needs to explain provocation. I am not provoking anybody. I am just upholding the longstanding position.”

“I am a huge proponent and supporter of good relations with Spain and of co-operation with Spain and of normalisation of relations with Spain. Everyone in Gibraltar knows that. But they also know that I am equally committed not to achieve those things at the expense of unilateral sovereignty concessions when everyone else says that we are supposed to have parked sovereignty safely. I can’t be the only one that is not allowed to park sovereignty safely. “

TALKS

Mr Caruana says the position on talks going ahead remains that there are six papers, two of which are obstructed by the need to neutralise the Spanish “changing of the goalposts” in the respect of Gibraltar’s waters and Spain having them designated as ‘site of Community interest’ of their own. He says either there is a formula that neutralises that or the talks could proceed with four papers. Gibraltar is willing to do either but it requires the other two participants to do so as well.

The Chief Minister confirmed that one of his main concerns is that the designation move might just be a stalking horse for further such moves to make gains by stealth.

He said that the concerns that the move may be an attempt to set a precedent is constantly at the back of his mind and forms part of Gibraltar’s positioning in its negotiations in relation to this matter. “What if it is not a one off and it repeats itself. In those circumstances I do not see how co-operation can take place against the backdrop of a situation where Spain seeks to reduce British and Gibraltar status, in relation to sovereignty and jurisdiction, to an equal status to Spain’s denial of the existence of our sovereignty and jurisdiction.”

When the first round of Cordoba subjects ended, the Tripartite Forum looked for new issues and Gibraltar proposed maritime co-operation.

But Mr Caruana says that things then took a bad turn.

“Behind our backs Spain then goes off to do the designation. When we discover it and Spain comes back to the table and says ‘Where were we? Let’s carry on with the co-operation.’ We say ‘Hang on. Now we have got to neutralise the effect of what you have done. You have moved the goalposts. You have changed the ground rules. You have altered the equilibrium as it has existed for 50 or 60 years and now this has got to be fixed.’”

Gibraltar, says Mr Caruana, continues to want to co-operate with Spain on maritime issues even though Spain holds a different view on sovereignty of the waters than Gibraltar and UK does.

“What Spain cannot pretend to do is to bank its unilateral rearrangement of the position of the goalposts half way through the match and then pretend that the other two players can carry on notwithstanding this. Britain also has a problem with the designation, it is not just Gibraltar.”

NEGOTIATIONS

Gibraltar is now trying to establish neutralisation that will allow it to continue to co-operate notwithstanding what Spain has done. That has been made difficult after the Spanish Guardia Civil came into Gibraltar waters on Sunday and a few hundred yards off the coastline started stopping local fishing boats and asking them to provide documentation.

“Sorry, but there is no point asking me what I am doing to provoke. I am defending the position as it has been for 60 years and those who are responsible to explain are those who have changed the careful equilibrium that has prevailed and which existed at the time we embarked on this course,” says Mr Caruana.

UK DUTY

Mr Caruana says Britain cannot sit on the fence either: “It is up to the UK at the end of the day to uphold the British sovereignty of Gibraltar waters. It is not a responsibility that the UK can just ignore. The Constitution imposes obligations on the UK, not just rights.”

“We all want to co-operate, none of us wants unpleasant incidents but they cannot be avoided by ceding, irretrievably, ground to Spain on sovereignty in the name of co-operation and in the name of not provoking and in the name of making possible Sr Moratinos’ visit.”