CARUANA WRIGGLES ON SOVEREIGNTY

In a recent interview with El País the Spanish minister for foreign affairs, Trinidad Jiménez, spoke about the Tripartite Forum and why, for now, no meetings were scheduled.

Spain is in pre-election mode, as too is Gibraltar, and it is doubtful whether the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, is keen to meet with Jiménez or indeed Caruana in the forum until after those polls have been held and the future governments of the two nations has been decided. This is particularly the case as the opinion polls in both consistently show a change of government is likely.

Jiménez’s reason for not attending the Tripartite Forum is much clearer. She insists the Chief Minister, Peter Caruana, demands the sovereignty of Gibraltar’s waters be put on the table. She added that the forum was a good instrument but it was designed to tackle the questions that affect residents of both sides of the border but not sovereignty.

Pointedly Jiménez told El País: “...the chief minister of Gibraltar wants to bring to the forum questions on sovereignty and the jurisdiction of the waters around the Rock. The government is clear that these are affairs for only bilateral discussions between the UK and Spain, and therefore, we decided not to convene it.” Pressed by a journalist on Caruana and sovereignty – she stressed – “if Caruana insists on raising the sovereignty of waters – there will be no meeting of the Tripartite Forum.”

Well Jiménez may be many things but I have yet to hear her called a liar and nor am I aware of any official contradiction from London or Gibraltar of her comments.

Now let us move on to Tuesday’s press conference after the meeting between the chief minister and the mayor of La Línea, Gemma Araujo. Here I shall quote from the press release directly in Spanish: “Con referencia al Foro de Diálogo de Gibraltar, dejó patente el ministro principal que no es bueno plantear el fin del diálogo. “Cuando hay problemas es cuando no hay que abandonar, sino reforzar el diálogo y hallar puntos de colaboración para darle solución a los ciudadanos. Yo no quiero, ni en el Foro ni fuera de él, hablar de soberanía”.

So despite Jiménez insisting the chief minister demanded that “sovereignty” and “the waters issue” be on the table for discussion at the forum Caruana tells us: “Yo no quiero, ni en el Foro ni fuera de él, hablar de soberanía”.

However back in July 2009 Caruana was interviewed by Herrera on Onda Cero radio. He surprised the esteemed presenter by saying he was prepared to raise the sovereignty issue during the forum sessions. I presume he meant he was willing to discuss the future sovereignty of Gibraltar which of course fits in with his later statements in Spain in favour of an Andorra style solution, which to all effects is joint sovereignty.

So Caruana asks Spain to put sovereignty on the table, then is accused of causing the abandonment of the forum because he insists on discussing sovereignty but then in La Línea has the brass neck to tell the media and have us believe: “Yo no quiero, ni en el Foro ni fuera de él, hablar de soberanía”.

Hmmm. Caruana has previous when it comes to sovereignty. He comes from a “Palomo” background, it has yet to be determined whether he mislead Tony Blair and Jack Straw over Gibraltar’s willingness to opt for joint sovereignty in 2001 and 2002 which of course, if he did, fits in nicely with his promotion of an Andorra settlement in Spain but on which he says nothing in Gibraltar.

The problem for the chief minister is he believes truth is a branch of economics and hence is very economical with it. When he named me during his Budget speech in July, a rare honour for a mere hack, he accused me of having stated in an article in Panorama on June 22 that the GSD and his government had been party to misleading the UK over joint sovereignty in 2001 and 2002. It will come as no surprise to you to learn that whilst there were 771 words in the article I wrote no such thing. What I did suggest, and I am yet to be disproved, is that maybe he misled them not the GSD or his government.

The fact is because of his continuous wriggling on this issue Caruana cannot be trusted by the people of Gibraltar over their sovereignty. And if a Gibraltarian cannot be trusted on this keystone issue what can he or she be trusted on?

IS IT GOING TO BE AN OCTOBER ELECTION?

All too often what should be told first to Gibraltarians by their chief minister or GSD government appears in print in Spain. There are numerous examples, one of the most notable being Caruana announcement in Sevilla that he wanted to drag his people in to an Andorra-style joint sovereignty deal.

Now the respected Spanish national daily newspaper, ABC, says the election will be in October. A good guess or has somebody at No.6 been briefing or let the cat out of the bag? It notes Caruana will be bidding for a fifth consecutive term in power and hence to fend off his socialist candidate has become more nationalistic and anti-Spanish. Sorry I must have missed that.

The subject was raised as ABC says Spain’s minister for foreign affairs, Trinidad Jiménez, has invited her British counter counterpart, William Hague, to Madrid for a re-run of the Trini and Willie show that first took place in London in February.

On the agenda is apparently the rescuing of the Tripartite Dialogue Forum in which no dialogue has been taking place for some time. The urgency is that Spain goes to the polls on November 20, after which Trini might well be looking for a new job out of government, and hence ABC mentioning the potential problems over dates because of Gibraltar’s own October poll.

Of course the Holy Grail of Spanish politics is the country’s belief that Gibraltar belongs to Spain and each party recites that mantra whilst following either a hard or soft relationship with the Rock. The PP are the hard ball players and hence Trini had to assure them and the media in February that the PSOE government had not changed or softened its stance with regard to Gibraltar and Spanish sovereignty.

In the run up to the Spanish election PSOE will want to demonstrate that it is taking no nonsense from Caruana even thought the majority of Spaniards are only concerned with the economy and the unemployment totals.

There has been no ministerial of the forum since October of last year with none seemingly likely in the near future as the disagreements rage over policing. Furthermore Caruana has antagonised Spain by tossing the territorial waters issue in to the mix, waters which Madrid maintains are Spanish. Hence Spain also maintains it is a bi-lateral issue between London and Madrid, certainly nothing to do with the chief minister.

It is probably true to say that William Hague would happily put the forum out to grass for a while given the numerous international issues that trouble him such as Libya. However Trini would like to be seen to be taking action before Spain goes to the polls and any such talks would have to take place before a Gibraltar election campaign got underway.

However Trini might have some trouble in wooing Willie to come over to her place. The British Government is fully aware that if opinion polls are to be believed both Spain and Gibraltar could be heading for new governments. Hence there seems little point in having talks with the present incumbents in Madrid and on the Rock when in a month or so the policy of both governments could have changed dramatically.

GIBRALTAR ONLY HAS HARBOUR’S WATERS

As tensions heighten over the incursions of Guardia Civil patrol boats and now the Spanish navy into Gibraltar’s territorial waters Spain’s minister for foreign affairs, Trinidad Jiménez, has stated as far as Madrid is concerned the Rock’s only waters are those laid down in the Treaty of Utrecht.

This stance has been that of Spain since the ink first dried on the battered and largely discredited treaty. Whilst even Franco turned a blind eye to its provisions the PSOE government, perhaps with elections in mind, has been upping the pressure in an attempt to outdo the Partido Popular.

Indeed when Jiménez made her statement is was in response to a question from PP Senator Alejandro Muñoz-Alonso on the incident between the Guardia Civil and RGP in Gibraltar’s waters on April 24. At that stage the latest incursion by the Spanish navy’s corvette, Atalaya, had not yet filtered through to Madrid.

None-the-less the foreign minister was adamant that Spain was not going to give more rights to Gibraltar over its waters above what is laid out in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. She stressed this gave Gibraltar (and Britain) only jurisdiction over the waters of the port and not the three miles that is claimed under international law, let alone the 12 miles which the UK could claim and which many in Gibraltar argue it should.

Jiménez went on to guarantee that the Spanish Government would “always safeguard this premise” and expressed her “full support” for the work of the Guardia Civil in fighting crime in the waters of what Madrid calls the Bay of Algeciras. She added that Spain would handle the matter with firmness and in a responsible manner.

As on previous occasions Jiménez stated that the problems with the UK over the waters “are absolutely not new” and have been going on with “different intensity for almost 20 years”. She stressed that the position of the socialist government was exactly the same as previous administrations over “the defence of Spanish sovereignty in the waters surrounding Gibraltar”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a formal protest note to the British Embassy in Madrid after the April 24 incident voicing its “most firm rejection” of the incident. However the PP in the form of Muñoz-Alonso considered this to be “insufficient, uncouth and sterile”.

Spain has to be credited with one thing: its stance over Gibraltar’s waters and airspace is as clear as can be. The Gibraltar Government is powerless to act other than to protest to Madrid and London in the strongest possible terms.

It is the British Government’s waters that are being violated and it is London that has to respond with appropriate action. Whether the Foreign Office will want to take a stand on this issue, invoking international law, remains to be seen. My guess is that it will not.

The attitude of London and Madrid seems to be that Gibraltar is a shared thorn in their mutual sides and conflict in the bay or off the eastern shore will continue to happen. Spain will wave the Treaty of Utrecht, Britain international law books, but in the meantime it will be business as usual between the two nations.

The challenge for the chief minister, or Fabian Picardo if he succeeds him, is to get the British Government to honour its obligations to the people of Gibraltar and its own interests by defending the Rock’s internationally recognised waters. A failure to do so will see this 200 year old dispute rattling on like a rusty sabre for another 100 years.

(The photo shows part of the waters of Gibraltar’s Harbour that are recognised by Spain. Ironically the harbour water’s described in the Treaty of Utrecht are those of the much smaller Nelson’s Harbour – the present day location didn’t exist in 1713).

TRINI IS NOT FROM MARS

Whatever Gibraltarians may think of the Spanish Foreign Minister, Trinidad Jiménez – or Trini to her friends – she isn’t from Mars. Indeed she is a Malagueño from Vélez-Málaga. So we can be pretty sure she knows where Gibraltar is and all about the Campo de Gibraltar too.

Equally it would appear that José Ignacio Landaluce is from another planet to us. Although he is the MP for Cádiz and wannabee mayor of Algeciras for the Partido Popular in May he is not a local lad. He was born in Logroño and before you rush off to find your atlas I can tell you, if you don’t know, it is in La Rioja in the northern part of Spain.

Why am I telling you all this? Well Landaluce has been giving some advice to the Spanish Foreign Minister before she heads off for today’s meeting with her British counterpart, William Hague.

Cheekily he has advised Trini to take a photograph of Gibraltar with her so that she can see – and no doubt tell Hague – that the Rock also has a surrounding area – the Campo de Gibraltar.

Landaluce went on to say that it is a pity the minister did not visit the Campo de Gibraltar before jetting off to London. Had she done so the boy from Logroño tells the Vélez-Málaga lass she could have seen at first hand the reality of the region and the relations that exist between both territories.

Expansionist Gibraltar – expansionist Caruana

Just in case Jiménez was unsure of how to conduct herself in London the Cádiz MP tells the minister she should have “the firm intention and the conviction that she is representing Spain and the interests of the Spaniards in the face of the expansionist pretentions of Gibraltar.

Whilst Landaluce says the Partido Popular is all for talking with Britain on themes that can benefit both sides of the border she is not to give way on the issue of Gibraltar’s waters – which are Spanish!

Finally, the would-be mayor assured us that there is a priority in relations between Spain and United Kingdom concerning Gibraltar “is not other than understanding, but not at any price and much less if the decisions that can be taken only favour the British colony and the expansionist tendencies of its Chief Minister, Peter Caruana”.

So I asked Senator José Carracao, who has special responsibility in PSOE for relations with Gibraltar, what he thought about Landaluce’s words. He told me: “Landaluce once again displays himself as a demagogue with resulting insults. Of course the minister knows perfectly well the Campo de Gibraltar and its parliamentary representatives.”

I suspect the good senator would have vented his spleen further on Landaluce but he cut off as he was on an aircraft about to take off. To where? Is he to be a fly on the wall at the Foreign Office when Jiménez and Hague meet?

Of course Hague needs no introduction to Gibraltar as he visited the Rock in 2009. Wonder when the last time Landaluce was there?