Gibraltar

Lord Luce Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Luce]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures are being taken to safeguard the interests of Gibraltarians in the light of recent Spanish activities in British Gibraltar Territorial Waters and on the border between Spain and Gibraltar.

[Lord Luce (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare an interest as a former Governor of Gibraltar.

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)]

My Lords, we continue to uphold the sovereignty of British Gibraltar territorial waters through the Royal Navy’s response to unlawful incursions and our diplomatic protest to the Spanish Government. We are maintaining strong diplomatic pressure on the Spanish Government to de-escalate tensions and to remove unlawful additional checks at the border. The European Commission sent a monitoring mission to the border at our request on 25 September, and we await its conclusions.

[Lord Luce]

Does the Minister agree that as democratic partners in the European Union and NATO, the Spanish Government, rather than embarking on a policy of undemocratic Francoist type bullying of Gibraltarians, both at sea and on the border, would do well to follow the example of the previous Spanish Government, which embarked on constructive policies of joint economic collaboration between Spain and Gibraltar bringing advantages to the citizens of both Gibraltar and Spain in that region? To that end, will she say whether the Spanish Government have agreed to proposals to resume a dialogue and, if that is to take place on practical issues to do with Gibraltar, will the Gibraltarians be full participants in these discussions?

[Baroness Warsi]

I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord in relation to Gibraltar, during his time at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as Governor of Gibraltar. He is incredibly familiar with incidents that arise between Spain and Gibraltar. We are entirely clear that this matter should be resolved politically. I take the noble Lord’s point about both of us being members of the European Union and I completely take his point that this matter has to be resolved in accordance with the wishes of the Gibraltarians.