Creating conflicts

An episode of tension has erupted between Spain and the United Kingdom because of Gibraltar, a city under British sovereignty which is situated south from the Iberian Peninsula and near the Spanish province of Andalusia. In fact, Spanish police has recently implemented new and stricter controls across the border between Gibraltar and La Línea de la Concepción, one of the Spanish cities which share its boundaries with the rock. Spanish authorities claim that the purpose of those security checks is to prevent snuff smuggling whereas hundreds of Spaniards who daily cross the border to their jobs are forced to wait for hours and so being late to their commitments.

However, snuff smuggling is not the origin of those checks and their consequences. Everything started when Gibraltar government started building an artificial reef which in practice prevented Spanish fishing boats from fishing in the area. It was located near the Spanish Playa de Poniente (Western Beach), in the city of La Línea de la Concepción and 500 meters away from British territorial waters. Thus the Spanish government raised concerns on the effects that this mesure could have for the economy of the area and send the Civil Guard to stop the collocation of the blocks which formed the reef. Moreover, Spanish authorities reacted aggressively implementing harder controls along the border and threatening Gibraltar with cutting the Spanish airspace to the aircraft from or to the rock as well as with cutting out the concessions on telecommunications. Furthermore, Spain is working on a tax which would charge people who want to cross the border either to reach their commitments or to enter Gibraltar as a tourist. If it is approved, each vehicle which wants to cross the frontier will be forced to pay 50€, a measure which goes clearly against the freedom of movement of both residents and tourists. Nevertheless, the rock is not within Schengen space thus no rules regarding freedom of circulation are to be applied there.

An isolated fact has led to a diplomatic conflict between the United Kingdom and Spain so far, damaging the inhabitants from both sides of the boundary. But have the latest events be the true cause for such an episode of tension? Why has this conflict exploded preciselly now? Has it something to do with corruption scandals and bad economic results in Spain?
Though Spain delivered Gibraltar to the United Kingdom as a payment to obtain the recognition of Phillip V as the new Spanish king according to the Utretch Treaty, signed in 1713, the reality is that Spanish nationalism has repeatedly used this issue when the situation within the borders of Spain was critical. Several reasons have been exposed by Spanish authorities to raise their concerns on the sovereignty of the rock, as for example the fact that "Utretcht Treaty did not include any clauses regarding the airspace of Gibraltar (sic.)". Other matters of controversy are the territory beyond the 1713 borders which has allegedly annexed by the British government and the sovereignty of the waters surrounding the territory. After several years of sieges and fights during the 19th Century, the worst dispustes took place during Francisco Franco's ruling in Spain, who even forced the closing up of the fence which marked the border between the country and Gibraltar in 1966 and left thousands of Spaniards jobless, after three years of non-stop tensions between both countries which even led Franco to put this issue at the hands of the United Nations that issued two resolutions regarding the status of Gibraltar and its sovereignty while respecting the interests of its inhabitants.
However, the reclamations regarding the rock are always issued when the different governments, like Franco's dictatorship, have something to hide within their borders. In this case, the conflict erupted when Spanish justice is investigating a case of supposed corruption by the ruling party in the country, the People's Party, which is among one of the greatest scandals the country has ever seen. This is the main reason Britons claim to be behind the current reivindications, as well as the territorial disputes within Spain. Moreover, Catalonia and the Basque Country, which are seeking their independence from Spain, have shown their support to Gibraltar and its British sovereignty, as accepted by Gibraltarians on a referendum which rejected the shared ruling of the area in 2002. Hence, claims of "Gibraltar Español" (Spanish Gibraltar) obey only to the purpose of deviating the attention off the critical problems of this country by reliving the ghost of a conflict which has never existed since the same king Philip V admitted that Gibraltar would be forever English. Spain cannot continue giving the back to the history.