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Will there be a delay that will push the general election into next year?
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The Government continues to make irrelevant excuses to justify its failure to increase its maritime assets even though the need for this was identified by none other than the Chief Minister himself in 2009, says the Opposition, and add: The continuing delay in taking action to meet this requirement has been accompanied by a deterioration of the position at sea with the agencies of the Spanish state and even individual Spanish nationals becoming more assertive and disrespectful of Gibraltar’s authority inside Gibraltar’s territorial waters.
The Opposition goes on to note that in the estimates of revenue and expenditure for the financial year 2011/2012, which have just been approved by Parliament, there is again no specific visible provision to meet the Government’s requirement for larger and faster vessels. It will be recalled that in his speech moving the Appropriation Bill, the Chief Minister announced that the Government had taken a policy decision to establish a Borders and Coast Guard Agency. He explained that the functions of this new agency included several policing and enforcement functions as well as the patrolling of Gibraltar’s territorial waters and maritime and terrestrial borders. He added that these “and the RGP own maritime duties are the functions for which I said last year in the House that the Government would procure additional marine assets, and this is in hand.”
However, there is no doubt that Mr Caruana’s intervention has given the impression that the delay in increasing the capability of Gibraltar’s maritime assets has been linked to the formation of this new Agency, even though he has denied it.
In response to the contribution made by Dr Garcia, who pointed out that the Government had made no reference to this new Agency in the budgets of 2009 and 2010, Mr Caruana said that “it is not true, I regret to tell the Honourable Dr Garcia that I have said that I am now changing to the Agency, to the new Borders and Coast Guard Agency the reference that I made in the House last year about this question of resources and jurisdiction. What I described in the House in my address on the first reading of this Bill is the functions that the Borders and Coast Guard Agency would do.”
The Opposition considers that whether a new Agency exists or not, and whatever its functions are going to be, has absolutely no bearing on the fact that Gibraltar’s maritime assets have not been upgraded by the Government since they established in 2009 that there was a need for this upgrading to take place.
The consequence of this lack of action has been that the Spanish Guardia Civil, the Spanish Navy, the Spanish Customs service (Aduanera), and other agencies have all attempted to exercise jurisdiction inside Gibraltar’s territorial sea, the Opposition say.
The Government have expressed the view that it is a matter for the Royal Navy to prevent an incursion from taking place, from a sovereignty or defence point of view, but that it is the competence of the Gibraltar authorities to prevent foreign agencies from exercising jurisdiction once inside our territorial waters.
The Opposition insist that "it is relevant to note that there is also no specific provision for the creation of the new Borders and Coast Guard Agency itself in the budget. However, the Government indicated that the funds earmarked for Security and Immigration Ltd would be diverted for this purpose. Mr Caruana also explained, in response to questions from Joe Bossano, that the Government’s thinking on this issue was not shared with those who prepare the budget book and he assumed that by the date the book was ready in March 2011 the Government may have not yet decided whether to proceed with the Agency as a matter of policy.
"There are difficult technical questions to resolve given that interested parties like the RGP, Customs and the Port already exercise jurisdiction in our territorial sea. Given that the policy decision to proceed with the new Agency had not been taken three months into this year and that this is an election year, it is not clear how the Government is going to have the time to consult all the affected parties before the policy is implemented, unless there is going to be a delay which will push the general election into next year 2012."
19-07-11
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