Neither the operation out of traffic, nor the high temperatures or the arrival of the first umbrella to Benidorm beaches. If there was any summer news par excellence, it would be dispute between Spain and England around Gibraltar. In the past two decades, tensions have been between London and Madrid at the expense of the British colonies summer after summer without missing the annual meeting, setting up regular prints such as long queues at the border or incidents between the Royal Navy and the Civil Guard in the waters around Batu.

In July 2009, Gibraltar was preparing for a historic event: the first visit of a Spanish priest to the Rock in 300 years, which had passed since Spain ceded its sovereignty to Britain through the Treaty of Utrecht. It was the third Tripartite Forum meeting promoted by the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which gave Gibraltar a voice in negotiations between Britain and Spain under the slogan “two flags, three votes”.

But days earlier, Batu’s then chief minister, Peter Caruana, stirred up already tense calm waters and called on Gibraltarian fishermen in the area to disobey Civil Guard requirements. In terms of meeting Meritorious, he told them to launch beacon for help.

It sovereignty of the waters surrounding the Rock This is one of the main reasons for the conflict between the two governments and one of the most provoking summer headlines. In the middle are the fishermen, the pawns in a game of chess that have been on the table for too long. That year clashes broke out with each other: in December four Civil Guard agents were detained in Gibraltar for two hours after entering the port of El Peñón chasing a suspicious boat. The tension reaches an almost surreal level when the Civil Guard patrol boat convinces that the Royal Navy is doing it Target practice against Spanish-flagged buoys. Overseas had to summon the British ambassador in Madrid, who confirmed that the yellow and red buoys did not represent the Spanish flag.

Three years later, the Spanish government and Rock has changed its political color. And the tension only increases. On 20 August 2012, the new chief minister, Fabian Picardo, declared Batu and its waters “special conservation zone & rdquor; environment. In practice, this is an excuse not to allow fishing with nets around rocks, something he has been doing since March.

concrete block

But if there was a summer where diplomatic conflict took all the cover, it was 2013. Gibraltar intends to build an artificial reef and throw seventy concrete blocks into the sea in one of the most common work areas for fishermen in the region. . Mariano Rajoy’s government accuses Gibraltar of “violating international law in Spanish waters”, which Batu recognized as his own. The tension was such that Gibraltar police officers clashed with Spanish fishermen in the bay. And a year later, divers from the Foundation for the Defense of the Spanish Nation removed one of the concrete blocks in protest. There is even a far-right leader, today at the head of the third force in Congress, who photographed himself above the crowd and uploaded the image to social networks in 2016. The harassment continued for months, and Spain used what had been one of its most powerful moves. Liked in the game: perpetuate control at the Gate, as the border between El Peñón and La Línea de la Concepción is knowncausing long queues of vehicles trying to cross into Spain.

In those years, being an ambassador in London was a demanding job. Each summer, the British Foreign Office summons the Spanish diplomat several times to report on the latest conflict in Gibraltar. And Spain responded by summoning the British ambassador in Madrid.

nuclear submarine

In 2006 it was the environmental organization that placed its information focus on Gibraltar. A United States Army nuclear submarine, USS Memphis, docks at the Gibraltar naval base for a regular stopover before arriving in Lebanon. Residents of Algeciras Bay join protests by environmentalists over the arrival of these “floating bombs”. In his memory is ‘Tireless’, another nuclear submarine that docked in Gibraltar in 2000 to be repaired from a malfunction in its reactor. For more than a year it was part of the gulf’s image, causing strong diplomatic tensions between Britain and Spain. At a tripartite forum meeting, the UK Ministry of Defense pledged not to repair any damage to nuclear-powered submarines.

One morning in August 2007, Campogibraltareans breakfast with news of a head-on collision between a freighter and an oil tanker in the waters of Gibraltar. The former was partially sunk and subsequent investigations concluded that the ship was sailing from the port of Gibraltar to the Mediterranean without the appropriate permits. While there is no need to lament the human or environmental damage, the events attest to the lack of coordination and exchange of information between the port authorities of Gibraltar and Algeciras.

In times of the pandemic and Brexit, the headlines coming from The Rock are different, albeit against the usual backdrop: relations between Spain and the UK. Negotiations on the status Gibraltar will receive after Brexit they are ten months old. The goal is the same as usual: how to agree two neighbors who don’t even agree that they are.

Related news