Mar 01 - GSD Fishing Dispute Response
GSD Statement on Fishing Dispute:
‘It is very convenient for the GSLP-Liberal Government to blame the previous GSD Government for its own failings on a wide range of issues and for the real mess they are getting Gibraltar into. This is no more evident than the latest tirade Press Release on the fishing controversy.
It is not true that the Leader of the Opposition has undermined the position of the Government in the Spanish press. The Leader of the Opposition has simply restated in an interview with Europa Sur the GSD position in a careful and measured way. The interview is posted www.gsdlive.com for everyone to read and come to their own conclusion.
Indeed, to argue that this is giving encouragement to anyone in Spain is neither credible nor logical, especially as the Government’s own press releases are sent to and published by the same Spanish press. Moreover, in his Press Release the Chief Minister omits any reference to his ‘war’ retweet (“The GSD want war? I will give them a war”) which he sent to over 2,000 accounts who follow his statements on Twitter which included Spanish media! The Chief Minister should have surely known better if he is so concerned about what is said outside Gibraltar. The reality also is that the GSLP have never had any qualms about criticising either the GSD or the previous Chief Minister Peter Caruana outside Gibraltar and in doing so have never measured their words.
The GSD notes that the Government of Gibraltar continues to criticise the 1999 Fishing Agreement. However, the reality is that under the agreement:
· Spanish fishermen agreed to respect Gibraltar’s right to legislate on fishing as it wished and respect the validity of the Nature Protection Act;
· Spanish fishermen agreed to respect the RGP's instructions and enforcement of that law in every case;
· There was no fishing as of right and the RGP would enforce the law as had been the case from 1991 to 1997.
By tearing up the 1999 Fishing Agreement what Mr Picardo has done is surrender the fishermen’s recognition of our sovereignty and our laws, and pushed them into the arms of the PP Government. The facts speak for themselves; there is by far more illegal fishing and more incursions by Spanish State Vessels today than ever before in our history and the rule of law appears no longer to rule in our waters. All that the now infamous announcement on Facebook has done is plunge Gibraltar into a far worse (and deteriorating) situation than we were ever in. That is the legacy of Mr Picardo's Government - a far cry from the rule of law mantra he has sought to invoke in defence of the reckless way the 1999 Agreement was displaced.
Of course, appreciating as he does the grave consequences this could have for our community he now tries to deflect criticism for his own actions and comes perilously close to pointing the finger at the RGP for non-enforcement because he knows that there is today by far more illegal fishing than ever before. So when the Government says they have already provided two new interceptor launches, a new larger patrol vessel and a second large vessel that is also on the way “which means that the RGP are now in a better position than ever to enforce the law” what the Government seems to be saying is that the enforcement agencies now have the necessary assets (which, it claims, they did not have before) to start making arrests at sea. Clearly, this is intended to shield the Chief Minister from criticism from the more radical elements within his own party that want this to happen. In fact, it is the only logical conclusion of the Government’s own position, namely the 1999 Agreement was illegal, the Spanish fishermen are operating illegally in British Gibraltar Territorial Waters with impunity and therefore the rule of law must now prevail.
The Government has asked the GSD to explain why as the previous administration the GSD did not change the law. Well the answer to that is very simple. It was unnecessary for the GSD Government to do so. The 1999 Agreement was a good agreement for Gibraltar but it has never been our position that it could not be replaced by something else. By 2011 we were committed to changing the law to allow fishing with EU compliant nets, not because of outside pressure but because we believed this was the right thing to do to better regulate fishing in our waters and we would have left the 1999 Agreement in place until we had done so.
Unfortunately, we are where we and the only solution now to get us out of the mess created by the present Government is to do precisely that, namely legislate to allow fishing with EU compliant nets. Once that is done, anyone caught fishing with non-EU compliant nets should be prosecuted.
Mr Picardo knows this to be the case but he appears reluctant to do so because having allowed Mr Cortes to tear up the 1999 Agreement on Facebook, this potential solution to the problem has been staring him in the face for a year, a fact we have consistently pointed out. What is not acceptable is the situation we are in today which is that there is more illegal fishing than ever before and our laws are simply not being respected.
The Government should therefore stop trying to deflect attention and start governing in a sensible way.’
