Nov 28 - GSD Says Government Cannot Turn A Blind Eye To Illegal Fishing
The GSD says it notes what it calls an “attack by long term GSLP supporter and Chairman of the Federation of Sea Anglers on the Leader of the Opposition and his astonishing defence of the Government.”
The fact is, says the Opposition, that the GSLP-Liberals promised in their 2011 manifesto to put an end to fishing with nets in BGTW and to ensure that the prohibition on fishing with nets in the Nature Protection Act was fully enforced.
Today, says the GSD, the Government claims that enforcement is matter entirely for the police and that they can do nothing about the “wholesale flouting” of Gibraltar’s laws in BGTW by Spanish Fishermen. If that is true, according to the Opposition, then the GSLP-Liberals “should never have made a promise in their manifesto to do the reverse.” The GSD argues that this situation means that the GSLP-Liberals “were either misleading people in 2011 or they are misleading people today” adding that for Mr. Ramos to now suggest that the GSD Opposition should criticise the RGP and not the Government, “simply ignores the promises made by the GSLP-Liberals.”
Further, the GSD stresses that the idea that a Government should “just simply turn a blind eye” to the lack of enforcement of laws governing a country is “nonsensical.” For example, says the GSD, if motorists were ignoring the speed limit down one of our roads on a habitual basis and the RGP did nothing about it, the party asks whether Mr. Ramos seriously suggesting that the Government of the day could take no interest in it and do nothing about it because enforcement is a matter for the RGP?
Finally, Mr. Ramos is accused by the GSD of saying that its solutions are simplistic or badly thought out. The party wishes to clarify that it has been its long term view that regulated fishing with EU compliant nets during certain times of the year and under certain conditions should be allowed. At first, it says, this policy was criticised by the Government for being “soft on Spain”. However, it says, two years after the current crisis broke, the Government adopted that very same policy and in public statements have admitted that they intend to introduce regulations in order to allow fishing with regulated EU compliant nets. The GSD repeats that it will support the Government in that.
However, the party is adamant any amended legislation needs to be enforced. To be crystal clear about this, as the Leader of the Opposition has been in interviews on GBC on several occasions, the party says that a future GSD Government would not tolerate a situation where Spanish Fishermen entered Gibraltar’s waters in breach of new laws allowing regulated fishing with EU compliant nets. If the total ban on fishing with nets is to be abolished, concludes the party, people in this community would rightly lose faith in the rule of law if illegal fishing continued even where the law has been made more permissive in order to allow fishing with nets in certain circumstances.
