Gibraltar Blocked

From the BBC:

"Gibraltar border delays prompt UK protest to Spain"

The UK government has raised "serious concerns" with Spain about long delays at the border with Gibraltar caused by a rise in vehicle searches. Gibraltar says Spain has created "deliberate" delays of up to six hours to vehicles travelling to and from the British territory since Friday. Foreign Secretary William Hague called the Spanish Foreign Minister on Sunday. Spain has yet to respond publicly.

It follows earlier accusations of Spanish incursions into British waters. Spain disputes UK sovereignty over Gibraltar, a limestone outcrop on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula, which has been ruled by Britain since 1713. On Friday and Saturday, Spanish customs officers stopped thousands of vehicles trying to leave the territory for Spain. On Sunday the delays switched to traffic trying to enter Gibraltar.  Gibraltar's government said Spain had engineered the delays to traffic.

There were delays of nearly six hours for those leaving Gibraltar on Saturday in temperatures of 30C (86F) as Spanish authorities searched "practically every vehicle". A resident of Gibraltar, David Gibbins, told the BBC Saturday's delays had meant the territory - which has a population of under 30,000 - had been "gridlocked". "People couldn't go to the beach, they couldn't go to their houses and they couldn't go to see their families," he said. He said border guards had been "checking every bit of paperwork", which he said never normally happened. Gareth Gingell, who is a member of the activist group Defenders of Gibraltar, told the BBC that on Sunday the Guardia Civil had been "only letting one car through about every 30 minutes".  "It's taking about four hours for people to get through," he said. On Sunday evening, the Foreign Office said that as well as the call between the two foreign ministers, the British ambassador in Madrid had raised concerns with the Spanish deputy foreign minister, and Britain had "registered our protest" with the Spanish ambassador in London.  "Our main concerns at the moment are restoring people's basic right to freedom of movement, and we want to work towards a speedy solution that will help to ease the very difficult situation and humanitarian issues at the border and enable a return to normal operations," said a spokesman. Earlier, the government of Gibraltar said: "The Spanish government has inflicted these unnecessary delays on the elderly, children and the infirm in up to 30 degrees of heat.  "This torture has resulted in an ambulance being deployed to treat people with medical conditions. On Friday, for instance, a Spanish man had to be taken to hospital with chest pains." It said the delays had affected tourists and "thousands" of people who go in and out of Gibraltar every day to work. Gibraltar's Deputy Chief Minister, Joseph Garcia, said: "Spain has again shown that she cannot resolve issues through normal diplomatic channels.  "Instead she merely resorts to heavy-hand tactics at the frontier. The behaviour of the Spanish authorities is unacceptable, un-European and illegal." Fellow government ministers John Cortes and Steven Linares distributed water on Saturday afternoon to motorists caught in the queues at the border, and the Royal Gibraltar Police called in 10 additional officers to help with traffic control.

^ I have both British and Spanish (among other nationalities) blood in me and think that the Spanish are acting like a bunch of children in this latest incident on the Gibraltar-Spanish border. The UK (which Gibraltar is a territory of) and Spain are both part of the EU, but Gibraltar and the UK are not part of the Schengen Visa Area like Spain is. Even so, since they are all part of the EU the British should lodge a complaint with the EU Parliament (since they already have with the Spanish authorities.) Franco Spain closed the border completely from the late 1960s and it wasn't reopened  until 1985 almost a decade after Franco's death. That was before Spain joined the EC (European Community - the precursor to the EU) and so there wasn't much the UK could do. If the EU doesn't stand-up for the people of Gibraltar then it will only show the member-countries and the world how worthless the EU is and will probably make more people in the UK vote to leave. ^

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23482549