Whoa!
So Spain voted to not fight terrorists, and instead they decide to antagonize the Brits?
Brilliant - this kind of decision-making is why Spain hasn’t been a world power in 400 years.
[quote]Minister's fury at Spanish moves to take over Gibraltar waters as Navy warship moves in | Daily Mail Online warships dispatched as Spain invades seas around Gibraltar
Royal Navy warships have forced heavily armed Spanish ships to retreat from British waters around Gibraltar.
Relations between the 30,000 residents of the British outpost and mainland Spain have become strained following what the Foreign Office described as ‘a violation of British sovereignty’.
The warships were dispatched after Spanish ships sent boarding parties to inspect fishing boats in British waters, despite having no authority to do so.
DISPUTE: Inhabitants are concerned the Spanish authorities want to control the British outpost of Gibraltar
The Rock’s inhabitants fear Spain could damage their economy by making moves to seize control of its sea and air traffic.
The incident on May 8 is the latest in a long series since Britain was handed Gibraltar in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht.
The Spanish Government has refused to recognise that territorial waters were a part of that agreement and made repeated attempts to reclaim them.
For centuries Gibraltar has been a key strategic base for the Royal Navy.
The latest incident followed a day after Gibraltar’s government vowed to block EU moves to give responsibility for the environment around the Rock to Spain.
A spokesman for Gibraltar’s opposition GSLP/Liberal party said: 'The latest incident is far more serious than anything that has happened before. It represents a frontal challenge to British sovereignty, jurisdiction and control over Gibraltar’s territorial sea.
‘As such the UK must not only respond to Spain, but must also extract guarantees from Madrid that it will never happen again.’
STAND-OFF: The Royal Navy sent warships to see off Spanish vessels which had entered Gibraltar’s waters
The Government said it had made strong protests to Madrid.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'It’s a violation of British sovereignty and something we take very seriously indeed.
‘We hope they will stop doing it.’
Madrid has not yet reacted.
A week before the latest incident a Spanish launch manned by paramilitary police was sent into Gibraltar’s waters before being seen off by a Royal Navy patrol boat.
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Considering the current state, shape and funding of the various European navies, British included; isn’t this just a silly little game of who can get the most dinghies in the water? I mean do either one of these countries have the balls to see the thing through?
Maybe the world has to have a rethink about this 200 mile around a possession zone of control. Maybe instead of the 12 miles of territorial water it should be 50 miles of territorial water but no 200 mile “economic” zone.
This same kind of shit is what happens with the TW fishing boats and the Japanese around the senkaku- tiaoyutai rocks.
[quote]Ask Argentina. They had the same question a few years ago. I believe the question was answered satisfactorily.[/quote]That was back in the day when the British actually had a leader with balls called Margaret Thatcher aka “The Iron Lady.” Last I checked, the current British political establishment has no such capable person(s) as they are all currently in a mess over abusing expense accounts.
This is somehow related to Premier League, or Champions League, or the legacy for Wm. Randolph Hearst. Remember Citizen Kane! errr, Remember the Main Thing, errrr, Remember Trafalgar, or was it St. Vincent, or the Nile… Remember the Gibraltar candytuft (Iberis gibraltarica), endemic to Gibraltar, being the only place in Europe where it is found growing in the wild.
