All agreed then?
Ken
border flow - all except pensions, which the UK has been caught on the hop
about. This is in fact NOT a matter for all three, but the only truly
bilateral issue between UK and Spain. The UK was the employer, Spanish were
the workers. Gib was merely the stage on which the tale unfolded. The only
interest Gib has in the matter is that Gib's pensioners should get a deal
identical to those available for Sp citizens - anything less would be
discriminatory.
On a personal note, I have today returned from a 10 day trip to Gib. The
travel there was OK, the way back was diabolical thanks once again to the
airline.
Ken
Ken
"Ken" <k...@k1at.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:e9ssv...@news4.newsguy.com...
Oh I forgot to add.
Convenient that the talks at ministerial level have been delayed ntil after
the constitutional vote perhaps? Could it be that part of the delay is of
Spain's making? Could it be that if the vote goes in favour of
constitutional development then things will not be as decided as they are
now?
K
antony...@talk21.com
So go on Ken what's the deal with 'phones, Airport, Border?
I thought you guys didn't want any agreement?
Ken
<antony...@talk21.com> wrote in message
news:1153576120.0...@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Oh an agreement would be good for everyone. Gib has no prob getting on with
Spaniards on an individual level, nor collectively - as long as no
politicians are involved.
The deal with the 'phones is that Spain will not recognise Gib's IDD 350
code. You can dial a Gib 'phone from within Spain, but by prefixing it AS IF
it were within the Sp exchange system, and Sp has set aside their "code" for
Gib which is 9567. Anywhere within Spain you dial 9567 73026 and you get Gib
Airport Information. Elsewhere in the world you dail 00 350 73026 to get the
same response. What's the issue? By forcing the Sp numbering plan, it makes
anything other than a 5 digit number inaccessible from Spain - and not all
five digit numbers at that, only those which start with 4, 5 and 7 as those
startig with other digits are already reserved for other use within Spain!
It al comes down to Spain atempting to thwart Gib's economic development by
hitting at the heart of telecommunications, limiting 'phone nos on the rock
to 30,000. Mobile 'phone numbers from Sp operators cannot roam into Gib, and
similarly Gib mobile mumbers cannot roam into Spain. Further, as Gib mobile
numbers are 8 digits long, none can be accessed directly from the Sp 'phone
system.
As to the airport, Spain is welcome to joint use. I don't pretend to know
any specifics, but I imagine a Spanish airline could use Gib airport as the
same airline might use Heathrow or Schipol or Frankfurt. But no - Spain want
CONTROL over the airport because they claim the airport is built on Spainish
soil - another argument altogether of course. When it came to talks on joint
use of the airport, the Sp authorities wanted any flights coming to Gib from
within Spain to be treated as an internal Spanish flight with no need to
show relevant documents. They also wanted the Gib authorities to have no
jurisdiction over any passenger coming to Gib airport from outside Spain
whose destination was Spain - all back door moves for de facto recognistion
as they would doubtless put it that when landing at Gib airtport you were in
fact landing on Spanish soil. you can see, I would think, why such moves
wold be rejected outright in Gib.
The border is another thing altogether yet again, with the Sp immigration
authorities using it to express their displeasure from time to time with
matters Gibraltarian, artificially prolonging the wait to cross into / out
of Spain, out of / into Gib. This would employ such ploys as scrutinising
every page of every passport of every person crossing, searching all and
every bag, searching all and every car. Within their rights perhaps, but not
within the spirit of good neighbourly relations between two members of the
EU.
The ONE thing Spain has been after for some time is a move on pensions.
Years ago, Franco withdrew the daily migrant workforce that came across to
Gib from the neighbouring Sp towns (but most notably from La Linea de la
Concepcion, to give it its full unadulterated title). These mostly men were
the labour force in HM Dockyard, and the tradesmen around town. As the
labour force was withdrawn so their contributions to their pensions ceased.
Once the border re-opened, the erstwhile workers or their survivors claimed
the relevant pensions. These were mostly very much reduced as you can
imagine, the last contributiuons having been made around 1968. The workers
demanded full pensions, the EU agreed with them and rather than making the
blameworthy pay (the Sp govt and its successors) they pointed the finger of
responsibility at Gibraltar. Personally I wonder ( I only wonder, I do not
accuse) what help the various EU bodies may have had in reaching this
decision! Gib OTOH pointed out that in those far more colonial days, the
actual employer was not GoG but HMG, so the bill fell squarely on the UK
taxpayer to pick up the bill ran up on theor behalf by Franco. HMG which was
until then keen that Gib should pay suddenly disagreed with itself when
London rather than Gib had to foot the bill.
It is THIS pension issue which is a vote winner / loser in Spain that has
been used by Gibraltar as the lever with which to get other issues sorted.
Had the issues been treated individually, Madrid would have had no appetitie
to sort anything other than pensions. Gib skillfully manoeuvred HMG into
backing Gib's case that either everything is agreed or nothing is agreed.
Therfore, unless there is movement on 'phone issues, airport issues and
border flow issues, there will be no movement on pensions either.
Ken
antony...@talk21.com
on? From my knowledge of history the Spanish do have some sort of
claim on the airport as the Bristish used this area (outside of the
Treaty of Utrecht) for a tented military hospital on a temporary basis
but we never gave it back!
It does seem that this new(ish) Spanish Government is a bit more
reasonable with trying to solve it's own Catalan, Basque 'problem' with
some degree of success.
If the policitians aren't going to solve the problems, who will?
Ken
<antony...@talk21.com> wrote in message
news:1153589065.9...@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> So in short has anything been agreed, or are these talks still going
> on? From my knowledge of history the Spanish do have some sort of
> claim on the airport as the Bristish used this area (outside of the
> Treaty of Utrecht) for a tented military hospital on a temporary basis
> but we never gave it back!
That's the Sp position. The 1729 Treaty of Seville OTOH confirms the British
point of view. I think it all started because of confusion over terminology.
The ToUtrecht was written in Latin, so that there couold be no such
confusion but it arose anyway. The British view, when the ToU speaks of the
city and its defences and fortifications came to mean what the British
understood these terms to be, which was the wals and lookouts (beyond these
walls) which would be held as British, being a buffer zone before the city
itself and which they could reasonably defend. The lands attributed to a
castle were those lands a castle could defend.
OTOH the Sp view and interpretation included no historical acceptance of the
surruonding lands. In Sp parlance, the territory finished at the outer
surface of the outermost brick in the wall.
Hence in the ToU the British thought they were getting the isthmus, and the
Sp didn't realise this. The Brit didn't apprecaite the Sp didn't realise
this.
In 1729 the Treaty of Seville accepted the victor's view, that the
surrounding lands WERE included, defined as a distance of 600 toises from
the walls. That translates to just over 1000yds from the walls, which is
(within the limits of cartography as was practised at the time) roughly
where the border now stands.
In any case, a country can gain new territory by conquest (see above) among
other means (discovery, purchase to name but two) and ALSO by dint of
continuous occupation. Don;t know about you, but if the interloping European
cast-off who's been in N America can claim the land off the original people
and have been there LESS time than the isthmus has been British, then by
heck the isthmus is British.
>
> It does seem that this new(ish) Spanish Government is a bit more
> reasonable with trying to solve it's own Catalan, Basque 'problem' with
> some degree of success.
>
> If the policitians aren't going to solve the problems, who will?
Maybe the problem is not going to be solved within the professional
lifetimes of the current generation of politicians, and perhaps politicians
will not solve it in any case. Periods of solitical and social instability
are common after the demise of a dictatorship of whatever hue, and Spain is
unusual within Europe in not having had a violent transition from a
totalitarian system of govt to a democratic one. I hope they never need to
revist the horrors of a civil war, and certainly the longer they get away
with not having one the less likely that they shall, but perhaps the catalan
/ basque problems will ultimately be solved violently.
That there were violent attempts which failed does not prove violent
uprising will not solve the problem. You could argue that if talk-talk
politics had the naswer, it too would have found it by now.
Ken
antony...@talk21.com
Ken
<antony...@talk21.com> wrote in message
news:1153598803....@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> So in short has anything been agreed, or are these talks still going on?
We are told that all technical matters have concluded satisfactorily for all
parties, it just requires a ministerial meeting to put an official stamp of
approval on it - and (my view) a further opportunity to move goalposts if it
is not politically expedient on the day to accept that which the people who
really understand the issues have worked out.
K