Friday, August 26, 2022 - 08:57 Carmen Gomez

by CARMEN GOMEZ

The question always arises as to why Spain is allowed to create difficulties at the frontier with American personnel who consequently have to turn back because they are stopped from entering into Gibraltar. Curiously, in 1997, the Commissioner President Jaques Santer and his wife visited the Rock privately. Apparently they endured a queue of nearly two hours, which they thought ludicrous to the extreme.

However the general thinking within the commission then was, that whatever the rights and wrongs of Spain`s dispute with the UK over ownership of the Rock, it was all part of EU territory and such blatant impediments should not be allowed. With a (non Spanish ) official saying that “if this kind of thing were going on between any two other pieces of territory within the Union, the Commission would have dragged everyone to court long ago.”
Yet once again, even coming from the Commissioner President, nothing was done about this.