FOURTH REPORT
The Foreign Affairs Committee has agreed to the
following Report:—
GIBRALTAR
INTRODUCTION
1. The Foreign Affairs Committee decided in February
1999 to undertake a short inquiry in response to the deterioration
in the relationship between Spain and Gibraltar which had occurred
in late 1998 and over the first weeks of 1999. We set the following
terms of reference:
"The British Government's response to the current
problems facing Gibraltar."
These were deliberately narrow terms because of our
wish to produce a focussed and rapid report. Our inquiry has,
however, inevitably dealt with some wider issues.
2. We visited Gibraltar from 16 to 18 March, and
met the Governor, the Chief Minister and a range of other local
leaders. A full list is appended at Annex 1. We took two sets
of oral evidence: from Rt. Hon. Joyce Quin MP, Minister of State
at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and her officials
on 30 March, and from Hon. Peter Caruana, Chief Minister of Gibraltar,
and his officials on 20 April. We received a number of written
Memoranda, principally from groups and individuals in Gibraltar.
We are most grateful to those whom we met and those who gave evidence
to us, as well as to the Governor and his Deputy for the programme
they arranged for us for our visit to Gibraltar.
3. The British Parliament has a responsibility for
all the United Kingdom's Overseas Territories, and the British
Government is ultimately the Government of Gibraltar also. Inside
Parliament, the Foreign Affairs Committee has a particular interest
in the Territories. We have taken evidence on Gibraltar in other
inquiries,[1]
and there has been one other inquiry into Gibraltar specifically.
In July 1981, our predecessors reported on Gibraltar: The Situation
of Gibraltar and United Kingdom Relations with Spain.[2]
The recommendations of that report were directed to a period before
Spain was part of the European Community and before Gibraltarians
had British citizenship. They have largely now been superseded.
1 First Report, HC 305, Session 1997-98, The Treaty
of Amsterdam, pages 37ff; Second Report, HC 347, Session 1997-98,
Dependent Territories Review: Interim Report. Back
2
Seventh Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 1980-81,
HC 166. Back
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