The Mayor of La Linea’s insistence on his misguided proposal to charge a toll on all cars entering Gibraltar is a short-sighted measure that will have the ultimate effect of throttling Gibraltar expenditure across the border, one of La Linea’s few sustainable income streams. There seems to be agreement in all quarters – other than in the Ayuntamiento – that such a measure is unlikely to ever be implemented, but it has created a considerable stir and drawn media attention; even UK newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and The Times, usually nonchalant toward events in this part of the world, have covered the controversy.

As if the idea of a toll were not unpopular enough in its own right, the suggestion that it would be applied on a discriminatory basis – Spanish workers would be exempted – adds even more fuel to the fire and would undoubtedly constitute a huge disincentive for Gibraltarians spending their hard earned money in neighbouring shopping, recreational and leisure facilities. It is doubly counter-productive for La Linea as it makes little sense that a municipal authority should seek to upset and provoke the population and Government of a territory that provides employment opportunities for thousands of Linenses, who would otherwise be left with nothing else but joining the growing ranks of Campo unemployed.

Quite apart from the measure being immediately perceived locally as a politically hostile act by a Mayor who went out of his way upon reaching office to offer the hand of friendship and distance himself from the abrasive style of government of his predecessor Juan Carlos Juarez, the suggestion is negative all round. Even from the point of view of La Linea, it seems absurd that they should be putting the brakes on cross-border cooperation by playing straight into the hands of enemies of the concept on both sides of the frontier, of those who thrive politically in moments of cross-border tension, providing them with plenty of ammunition to continue sniping away at vital efforts to reverse decades of mistrust.

It should be clear by now as history shows that in the context of long term cross-border relations, no one stands to gain from policies that seek to antagonise the neighbour, and while recognising the political difficulties faced by the Ayuntamiento, there can be no justification for such an action.

Having said that, it is also true that La Linea is getting a very raw deal from the socialist Government, and Alejandro Sanchez has reason to feel aggrieved, considering that Madrid consistently turns a blind eye to La Linea’s problems. We can agree with the diagnosis of La Linea’s economic ills as formulated by the Ayuntamiento, but cannot accept that the medication that is being used to assist the ailing patient is the correct one. Indeed it is understandable that the Mayor should seek to pressurise the national Government and to put the spotlight of public opinion on the plight of his bankrupt municipality. Objectively speaking, after months of frustration, and repeated unsuccessful attempts to seek meetings with Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, it has only been after threatening to collapse the frontier that he secured a face to face encounter with the head of Spanish diplomacy.

Perhaps some serious consideration ought to be given by the three Governments taking part in the Tripartite Forum to accommodating La Linea’s inclusion as part of the Spanish delegation, so that the widespread and complex sense of historical exclusion felt in the city can begin to be redressed. The Forum should be an integrating process; the more both sides feel they are making an active and important contribution, the more the chances of mavericks upsetting the applecart are diminished and as a result, its long term prospects of success as a meaningful tool of political dialogue can be enhanced. Chief Minister Caruana has in the past commented that it is not up to us to define the composition of the Spanish delegation. In other words, we are not going to object to the line-up presented by the Palacio de Santa Cruz, so the ball in that sense is clearly in Madrid’s court. Within the parameters and spirit of the Tripartite Forum it is conceivable that Sanchez could find allies in Gibraltar to make diplomatic representations to the British Government to in turn, exercise influence on the Madrid Government for a more sympathetic treatment of the neighbouring city.

But while this remains in the air, Mayor Sanchez should reflect on what it is that he is trying to achieve for La Linea with his radical approach, and return to a far more constructive, judicious and helpful strategy. If he feels that La Linea’s best chances of recognition lie in a display of intense political feeling expressed in the most unorthodox of manners, perhaps he should reconsider and instead of using the frontier as a political choking point, redirect his exasperation at the source of his problem.

He should also ponder the catastrophic consequences of embarking on a potential collision course with Gibraltar where both sides would stand to lose substantially from the ensuing conflict, and alternatively, to prove the coherence of his assertion that he does not have a quarrel with Gibraltar or its people but with the PSOE administration, take his municipal corporation – counsellors and all – to Madrid to carry out a protest outside the gates of the Palacio de la Moncloa or the Congreso de los Diputados.

SPANISH POLITICS

Without wishing to sound patronizing, the fact is that the Spanish political system is plagued by such a degree of bitter political infighting between the majority parties – in the past six years perhaps to unprecedented levels – that it often results in a complete loss of sight of a country’s national interest in favour of a narrow party political gain. Spain is still a young democracy and this is one of the outstanding unsolved questions that casts a detrimental shadow on public life.

The Spaniards have a very good term that suitably describes this: Cainismo, derived from the Biblical story of Cain and Abel in the book of Genesis. This has never been more true than in the case of La Linea. Since the frontier reopened the city has often been ‘out of step’ politically with what was happening nationwide and in the capital. The net effect of this is that all too often La Linea has been neglected by its own central authority. The huge mistake of successive Madrid Governments has been to conceive La Linea not as Spain’s shop front in relation to Gibraltar, and to support it regardless of who was in power, but to undermine the efforts of the Ayuntamiento whenever there has been a PSOE Government in Madrid and a PP led Ayuntamiento.

There are two separate issues at stake. On the one hand, when the frontier closed in 1969, La Linea lost its main economic lifeline almost overnight, and thousands of people were forced to emigrate to the north of Spain and across Europe in search of employment. The promises of prosperity and economic development made by the Franco regime never materialized and mass exodus in the years following the closure reduced La Linea’s population almost by half. No other city in Spain has had to ensure a traumatic experience of such magnitude and the socio economic impact was devastating. In the absence of no other sustainable means of income or employment, no industries and much less land than other municipalities surrounding it, La Linea has never fully recovered from that dreadful experience.

La Linea is so heavily indebted that Spanish state funding is withheld in lieu of arrears, which means that revitalization of municipal finances is never realistically within reach. The economic concession obtained from the state was a rare occasion and only surfaced at the time of the Aznar Government when the centre-right dominated both the national and municipal administrations. As soon as the PSOE was re-elected to office the special consideration afforded by the previous administration was revoked.

Today with 10,000 unemployed and with the Ayuntamiento as the city’s main employer, the Mayor faces an uphill struggle each month to obtain bank loans to pay the wages of municipal workers.

At the helm of a sinking ship what he should certainly not be doing is opening more waterways within the vessel by alienating potential allies. As he himself has often said in the past both Gibraltar and La Linea are stronger and stand to make mutual gains from cross-border partnership and cooperation. That remains as true today as when he first uttered the phrase.