I am delighted to be here in Brussels at the head of a Gibraltar Government delegation which also comprises the Minister for Trade and Industry and the Minister for Government Services, as well as officials.

We are not here, as some elements of the Spanish press have somewhat hysterically proclaimed, to seek to establish Gibraltar as the 16th independent Member State. Gibraltar is self-evidently not that. But we are here to appeal to Europe at its very heart; we are here to highlight Gibraltar’s status within the European Community and the problems that we encounter in the enjoyment of our fundamental EC rights, as a result of the conduct of our neighbour, Spain.

Gibraltar is a European dependent territory of the United Kingdom. We have a written Constitution granted to us in 1969 by the British Parliament. Under that Constitution, Gibraltar has its own Parliament and Government, which exercise self-government in all matters except defence, internal security and foreign affairs. These last three are reserved to the UK Government.

As a UK dependent territory, Gibraltar is an integral part of the EC (subject to certain limited and specified derogations) because Article 227(4) of the Treaty of Rome applies the Treaty and Community measures to any European territory for whose external affairs a Member State is responsible. We therefore entered the EC in 1973 at the time of UK accession.

Accordingly, the Gibraltar legislature (House of Assembly) separately transposes all applicable EC directives into Gibraltar’s statute law, and EC Regulations and the ECJ Court rulings have direct application in Gibraltar. In the past 3 years, EC law has comprised over 90% of Gibraltar’s legislation.

Gibraltar became British by military conquest in 1704. It was subsequently ceded by Spain to Britain in perpetuity (subject to a right of first refusal if Britain wished to give up sovereignty) by the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. Thus Gibraltar and its people have been British for nearly 300 years!

Although she ceded Gibraltar in perpetuity, Spain seeks a return of sovereignty notwithstanding that the people of Gibraltar are almost unanimously opposed. In 1968 a referendum was held. 12,148 voted to retain links with Britain. Only 44 voted to become Spanish. Sentiments have not changed one iota in the last 28 years. But the fact that we do not wish to be Spanish does not mean that Gibraltarians harbour hostility to the people of Spain. It is true that years of harassment have understandably engendered deep suspicion and mistrust. Nevertheless, we seek good, normal, friendly relations with our neighbour. Regrettably, the new Gibraltar Government’s efforts to put aside historical differences and instead concentrate on building a future as fellow Europeans have not been reciprocated.

The United Kingdom is committed never to transfer sovereignty of Gibraltar to Spain contrary to the wishes of the people of Gibraltar. This, which is enshrined in the preamble to our Constitution has been repeatedly reaffirmed by successive British governments of all political shades.

The people of Gibraltar seek recognition of our right to self-determination as established by the Charter of the United Nations, numerous covenants and resolutions of the UN, and the general body of other international law. To this end, Gibraltar addresses the decolonisation committees of the UN twice a year. Self determination means that the people of Gibraltar can determine their own future free of external imposition or interference. There is no inconsistency between self-determination and Gibraltar’s present status within the European Union.

Gibraltar is not engaged in a quest for sovereign independence. We seek to maintain our political ties to the UK through modernised non-colonial constitution. In this way Gibraltar and its citizens want to participate in the new Europe of the future, the Europe of Maastricht, the united Europe presently under construction. That Europe will not succeed unless it addresses and attends to the needs and aspirations of minorities - of which Gibraltarians are not the only one. There is no contradiction between being good Europeans and wishing to retain our particular identity and traditions while strictly observing EC legal principles.

I mentioned earlier that the enjoyment of our EC rights was being impeded. How and why is this happening? The reality of the matter is that Spain not only actively seeks Gibraltar’s exclusion from crucial EC measures, but conducts her relationship with Gibraltar as if we were not an intrinsic part of the EC. So, for example, and quite extraordinarily, there are no maritime or air links between Gibraltar and Spain because Spain forbids them. Restrictions are still placed on civil airliners approaching Gibraltar airport. Spain operates the land border in a way that often leads to very long delays in crossing. There are no red and green customs channels in operation, most vehicles are inspected and traffic is channelled into a single file regardless of volume. Such border regimes are unknown in the Western World, let alone within the European Union.

Gibraltar airport has, because of the Spanish veto, been excluded from participation in the EC Air Liberalisation "Open Skies" regime. Spain refuses to recognise Gibraltar identity cards, which are issued in EU format, as valid travel documents even though the Commission has indicated that they are valid; Spain even refuses to recognise Gibraltar’s international telephone area code (350) even though, consistently, she recognises our telex code. Spain is the only country in Europe from which you cannot dial Gibraltar by satellite via our 350 international area code. Spain seeks to exclude us from the External Frontiers Convention and from the so-called "Monti-Package" of Directives relating to free movement of people, even though Gibraltar is manifestly an integral part of Europe.

The people and Government of Gibraltar condemn Spain for seeking to isolate Gibraltar from the EC and for eroding and curtailing the legitimate exercise of our EC rights. Human and legal rights are indivisible and should not be sacrificed for political reasons: the Human Rights Convention and the EC Treaty were drawn up precisely to outlaw discrimination based on nationality and wilful governmental abuse of power.

A different but nevertheless important issue is the disenfranchisement of Gibraltar and its people from voting at European elections. Even though Gibraltar is part of the EC, its 30,0000 citizens are denied the right to vote for an MEP. It is not just Gibraltarians that are denied this right, but citizens of all EC states (presently about 2,500) who have chosen to take up their EC right to reside in Gibraltar. In our view, this is a clear breach of the principles of the Treaty of Rome which call for universal suffrage.

The issues that I have briefly touched upon impede the development of our political, social and cultural rights within the EC; but they also impede the development of our economy and impede the free movement of people; and they hinder the normalisation of relations in the region.

The Government of Gibraltar wants and seeks good, neighbourly relations and mutual cooperation with Spain. But we do not believe that in the Europe of today we are entitled to these things only if we agree to disappear from the map of Europe and succumb to Spanish aspirations over Gibraltar.

We therefore seek a process of dialogue with Spain in which Gibraltar can be present in its own right with its own voice. Spain refuses to accept this and hence there is no dialogue.

Our rights as European citizens do not and should not depend on Spanish approval. The treatment of Gibraltar is deplorable. We hope that matters may change radically, for the benefit of all the region’s residents.