GIBRALTAR IN STORMY WATERS

Just when the British Government hoped things couldn’t have got any worse – they have. London is already embroiled in the financial crisis, the row over retired bankers pay-offs and pensions, the privatisation of the Post Office and now Gibraltar’s territorial water comes in to the frame. This is not a spat between London and the Rock but between the UK, Spain and also the EU.

The basis by which Gibraltar is British are the terms laid out in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. Nearly 300 years on since its signing it has more holes in it than my old string vest. None-the-less without any more recent agreement that is all we have.

Now Spain has always argued that the treaty sets Gibraltar’s limits purely on the land occupied and that has been exceeded with the pushing of the border closer to La Línea. When it comes to Gibraltar’s waters matters become very choppy indeed.

The Spanish view is that Gibraltar has control of its harbour and nothing else. Hence waters of the bay and the Straits are its. However under international law Gibraltar has a three mile limit plus the median line in the bay and Britain could if it wanted claim 12 miles where that is geographically possible.

Now it emerges that in an EU directive related to environmental matters Spain has claimed responsibility for the majority of the waters surrounding the Rock and Brussels has agreed. The directive aims to protect natural habitats in the Mediterranean and Member States have since 1992 included a listing of the areas that they wish to protect. The United Kingdom had included “Rock of Gibraltar” and “Southern Waters of Gibraltar” as part of the listing of its own sites.

Spain has taken advantage of the updating of the 1992 directive to introduce a new protected area covering all the waters of Gibraltar as if they were Spanish. It was in December that the Andalucía government, at the request of the Spanish Foreign Ministry, included a new “Spanish” conservation area in the directive. The area, which Spain has called “Eastern Straits”, encompasses the same geographical area as the United Kingdom’s “Southern Waters of Gibraltar” and is about five times larger. The Spanish Government has made it clear that this includes all the waters around Gibraltar.

Spain now has EU legal obligations and responsibilities over Gibraltar waters in relation to nature protection. That includes the need to undertake assessments and monitor these areas for wildlife, threats, and other activities with environmental implications. It would follow therefore that Spain has the right to enter Gibraltar’s waters at any time to undertake those tasks.

If the situation wasn’t so serious it would be amusing that it was the Gibraltar Ornithological and Natural History Society that sounded the alarm. They were soon joined by the GSLP/Liberal Opposition and the non-elected PDP. It was only later that the Foreign & Commonwealth Office got in on the act caught like startled rabbits in the spotlight of this fiasco.

Apparently now the communications lines between London, Gibraltar and Brussels are glowing red hot as they try to sort out the shambles that has implications for the Rock’s very sovereignty. However given that the British Government didn’t know the size of the toxic debt it was inheriting when it nationalized certain banks or the terms of the pay-offs of failed directors it is hardly surprising that it wasn’t aware that the EU had given Spain responsibility for Gibraltar’s waters. A stormy sea lies ahead!

THE SIX DAY ERECTION...AND COUNTING

A 23-year-old in the Dominican Republic has maintained an erection for six days after taking alcohol and two sexual stimulants. He received medical treatment in Santo Domingo on Wednesday but is still as stiff as a board.

Antonio Rosa went to the hospital with the erection hours after making love but so far the medication from the hospital has failed to deflate his ego. The doctors have no doubt that the problem has been caused by one of the capsules he took and if his penis doesn’t recoil in days an operation may be necessary.

Antonio is rather concerned as he has been told that an operation could leave him impotent. “Eso me preocupa.”

Of course when you reach my advanced age to be stiff for six days would be bliss rather than a problem. I of course refer to my penis – the rest of me is stiff habitually.

CORRUPTION PROBE HITS MAJOR POLITICIANS

The corruption probe led by Spain’s famous judge Baltazar Garzón involving businessmen with ties to the Partido Popular has entered a new phase.

On Wednesday in a legal document Garzón indicated there was the possibility of national politicians being implicated. To date only local PP politicians have been fingered by the judge.

Garzón, for now, is not naming any names but that has not stopped media speculation. Politicians who have appeared in print in El País and other newspapers include the PP’s treasurer Luis Barcena and European Parliament MP Gerardo Galeote. Earlier the judge formally denied that a senior PP politician from Valencia was under suspicion as reported by El País but gave no such solace to Barcena.

The PP is of course fighting back. It has filed a complaint Garzón alleging “corrupt practices.” Garzón himself has asked prosecutors if he should be removed from the case as he is sits in the National Audience, Spain's highest criminal court that is technically not competent to investigate Spanish politicians and lawmakers.

The investigation has also embroiled the ruling PSOE government. The PP criticised the former justice minister, Mariano Fernández Bermejo, for going on a hunting trip with Garzón – the politician resigned his post on Monday.

One of the first arrests several weeks ago was of Francisco Correa at his home in Sotogrande in San Roque. The entrepreneur organised PP events and it is alleged he is behind dodgy building permits and other lucrative contracts awarded by PP municipal councils in Madrid, Valencia and elsewhere.

All of this will take British and indeed US readers by surprise because the tradition in those countries is for the judiciary and the political worlds to keep themselves at arms length. Indeed, the judges and law makers are more often than not at each others throats rather than sharing lunch on shooting parties. The White House has often been at odds with the Supreme Court, even though the President chooses its judges, and the High Court in London has often rattled the cage of the Prime Minister and his cohorts.

The problem in Spain is that although everybody accepts politicians are corrupt the judges are in danger of now being viewed as political rather than judicial – or perhaps they always were.

WAS THE CÁDIZ CARNAVAL GAGGED?

“Increíble pero cierto. Los carnavales de Cádiz, en otros tiempos cuna de la libre creatividad crítica y de la indomable rebeldía popular ante el poder establecido, no han producido ni una sola letra crítica en su versión de 2009. En la España actual, con 4 millones de parados y con una clase política que escandaliza a la ciudadanía a diario con sus despilfarros, abusos, corrupciones y desatinos, hay materia y razones más que suficientes para que la crítica carnavalesca, en una tierra antes libre, como Cádiz, hubiera sido feroz, pero los carnavales gaditanos han sido castrados por el eficaz y omnipresente poder político andaluz.”

Regular readers of my blog will know that I am an avid follower of the ‘Voto en Blanco’ website of respected journalist Francisco Rubiales. As you will see above this week he questioned whether the performers at the Cádiz Carnaval had been gagged.

Well there is no British comparison for the Spanish form of Carnaval of which the Cádiz Carnaval is unique. We do have a reputation for irreverent satire often aimed at our political masters. The carnaval acts I have seen over the years have been risqué, political, barbed and hilarious, often tilting at the windmills of every day life.

I must admit I haven’t seen any of this years acts but Francisco quite rightly reckons that with four million jobless, corruption rife plus numerous fiascos in public life then the ‘comprasas’ and ‘chirigotas’ who perform on stage at Cádiz’s Falla theatre had a rich vein of material to draw on.

He believes they dodged the challenge. Why he asks – was it because it was transmitted by Canal Sur, which is controlled by the PSOE run Andalucía government or because those who hand out the grants have their own agenda?

I don’t know! Yet what is certain is that in a free society, be it in Spain or Britain, we need to defend our right to speak out and ridicule our masters when they deserve it – and nobody can deny that right now they do truly deserve it.

In 2012 Cádiz celebrates the 200 th anniversary of ‘La Pepa’, the constitution that is considered in the Spanish speaking world as the ‘Magna Carta’ of nations. ‘La Pepa’ was drawn up and signed by the Cortes Parliament that was then sitting in the city of Cádiz before being suppressed by Napoleon. It would be cruelly ironic if in the year of its commemoration by leaders of Hispano-American nations that the Cádiz Carnaval was by then so neutered that it had become a meaningless parody of itself.

Behind ‘La Pepa’ was the cry of freedom and the regeneration of democracy. Both freedom and democracy are now under threat and we rely on such celebrations as the Cádiz Carnaval to remind ourselves and the wider world we are both free and democratic!

COULD THERE BE ANOTHER 23F?

Yesterday, February 23, is engraved for ever in the Spanish mind as 23F. It is the name given to the failed coup d’état that started on 23 February 1981 and ended the next day on 24 February 1981.

It is also known as El Tejerazo from the name of its most visible figure, Guardia Civil Antonio Tejero, who conducted the most notable event of the coup by storming into the Congress of Deputies with a group of 200 of his fellow armed officers during the election of Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo as the new Prime Minister.

It was also the time when Spain’s King, Juan Carlos I, cemented his place in the nation’s hearts by giving a nationally televised address denouncing the coup and urging the upholding of the law and the democratically elected government.

As a result of the monarch’s decisive intervention against the uprising the coup soon collapsed. After holding the Parliament and cabinet hostage for 18 hours the hostage-takers surrendered the next morning and nobody had been harmed physically at least.

This year is the 28 th anniversary of the coup attempt. A number of television channels have chosen this anniversary to broadcast dramatisations of the events of 23F.

A sobering fact is that today as in 1981 Spain is in a state of crisis. Then there was 20 per cent unemployment plus 16 per cent inflation. It is a sign of Spain’s democratic maturity that those problems are now tackled by its politicians at home and in international forums rather than through the waving of guns.

But, yes there’s always one of my buts, what if the people of Spain finally become fed up with their corrupt politicians? What if they despair of being shunted from one corrupt administration to the next at national, regional and local level? What if the politicians do not clean up their mutual act? Then the successors of Tejero may again take up arms. Then Juan Carlos or a future King Felipe might not have the will or the ability to talk down a coup. Then the democracy, which so many Spaniards fought so hard to win, might be smashed by another Tejero – the tile maker. What then?

STICKING IT TO SAN ROQUE TOWN HALL

On Saturday Ecologistas en Acción – Verdemar took its campaign to save the Pinar del Rey to San Roque town hall’s door – literally. Around 30 members of the environmental organisation in Cádiz posted stickers demanding ‘Pinar Si – Autovia No’ on the imposing wooden door.

Verdemar says it intends to fight on against the proposed road scheme that would endanger the 200 year old woodland, which is a vital green lung for the Campo de Gibraltar region and is home to important water aquifers. The ecologists stress that the road is not needed by the residents. It vows to take every legal action possible to stop the spending of public funds on a project aimed solely to meet the needs of heavy industry.

The environmentalists are convinced that socialist senator José Carracao and San Roque town hall are carrying out a campaign to stifle public protest ahead of a decision being made in Madrid to go-ahead with the road project. They also fear that in its wake land that is now protected will be opened up for development and the valuable environment of the Pinar del Rey will be destroyed.

Whilst Verdemar has vowed to demonstrate and take legal action to stop the road it has also called on all the political parties in the Campo de Gibraltar to state publically their policy on the road scheme.

Indeed this is not just an issue for environmentalists. The Pinar del Rey is vital for all of us who live in the Campo de Gibraltar. It is the weekend leisure ground for thousands of families in the Campo de Gibraltar and Gibraltar itself. Verdemar speaks for us all – but do our elected representatives?

A RIGHT ROYAL DO

The socialist senator who speaks for PSOE on foreign affairs, José Carracao, has stated that the visit by the Princess Royal to Gibraltar in March is “inopportune” as it “injures the sensitivities of Spanish public opinion and that of the Campo in particular.”

“We have nothing against the Royal Family or the Princess of course. What is provocative is that Princess Anne should come over to open a medical centre with her own name built on the isthmus. And this on a territory that is subject to dispute.”

I somewhat doubt whether the visit does injure the sensitivities of the Spanish people – I think they are more concerned with whether they’ll keep their job, how they’ll find a new one, or how to put food on their tables and pay the bills in the economic crisis. However a Royal visit to the Rock is a good diversion in troubled times.

The former mayor of Jimena and president of the Campo de Gibraltar town halls went on to say: “If it is high profile it could, I think, prejudice the talks” being the Tripartite Forum between Britain, Gibraltar and Spain. “If the visit sees the princess swamped by the multitudes I would not be surprised if it derails the talks.”

There is a lot of nonsense talked by Spanish politicians on this issue. Gibraltar has been British for over three hundred years and the people of the Rock have the every right to be visited by a member of their Royal family. In the very same way that the Spanish populations in the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla have the right to be visited by their King and Queen. Indeed on those occasions Spanish politicians care little for the “sensitivities” of the Moroccan people and nation who claim the enclaves as their own.

As a Briton living in Spain I am totally indifferent as to whether Gibraltar remains British, becomes Spanish, has joint sovereignty or total independence. What I have always maintained is that the right to self determine their future lies with the people of Gibraltar alone –and the Rock is not for Britain to give away or for Spain to take.