British colonies and tax evasion

By David Eade
As you read this the G8 Summit will be in its second day in Northern Ireland. The fact that tax evasion will be firmly on the agenda and that at least one British territory is cutting up rough over having to sign the OCDE convention is like manna from heaven for such Spanish newspapers as ABC.
The territory is question might be Bermuda and not Gibraltar but fear not Madrid will find a way of making a link.

David Cameron has made a great play of putting tax evasion at the top of the agenda and it is a key issue which will be addressed by G8 leaders including Presidents Barack Obama and Valdimir Putin. Indeed our own Chief Minister was invited to London by Cameron for the weekend first to see the Trooping of the Colour and then for a private chinwag ahead of the G8 Summit. Without a doubt the fight against tax evasion was the sole agenda item.
ABC trumpets the fact that Oxfam estimates of the funds that evade tax in the EU half is stashed away in British territories. It then goes on to name technology giants such as Google, Apple and Amazon who have hit the headlines for tax avoidance yet none of which happen to have any link to Gibraltar what-so-ever. With Bermuda they made do which is probably why that government is resisting overtures to sign from Cameron.

The Spanish daily states that only Jersey and Guernsey and the Isle of Man have so far voluntarily signed the convention on financial transparency and interchange of information of the OCDE. This it states has been signed by 55 countries and is considered to be one of the most efficient tools to prevent fiscal evasion.

It pointedly states that Gibraltar has not signed this convention so by implication we are resisting or refusing to do so. However that is far from the case. The Chief Minister recently wrote to David Cameron requesting that the OECD and Council of Europe Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters be extended to Gibraltar. In other words it is the UK and not us who must act.

Fabian Picardo went on to explain that such an extension forms an integral part of the our Government’s continuing policy of having Gibraltar recognised as being at the very forefront of jurisdictions seeking to eradicate tax evasion. The Chief Minister also pointed out that Gibraltar has already implemented the EU Directive concerning the exchange of information on tax matters and has entered into Tax Information Exchange Agreements with 26 countries. He also stressed that Gibraltar complies with the EU Savings Directive on automatic exchange of information and that Gibraltar is fully up-to-date with all its EU transposition obligations.

The Chief Minister added he believes that Cameron recognises that ‘Gibraltar is the benchmark jurisdiction in many respects in the field of the regulation of financial services. Well let us hope he does and is busy telling the G8 just that.
It is ironic to note that ABC also takes Barack Obama to task for allowing the State of Delaware to operate an off-shore financial territory firmly on USA soil. There the registry of companies, it says, is totally opaque basis. What ABC fails to state is that many of the companies registered there and in other dubious off-shore territories on that side of the Atlantic are major Spanish owned companies. These Spanish household names avoid paying tax in Spain and yet the government in Madrid, although losing millions of euros in taxes as a result, has done nothing to curb there activities. Sadly for ABC that truth is not such a good story as a bit of Brit bashing.
 

Frontier queue situation on the La Linea side

By David Eade

Life is full of coincidences. Last Friday I wrote here that it was time for the mayor of La Línea, Gemma Araujo, to stop the talking and do something about the border queue situation. Later that day she met our Chief Minister. By Monday afternoon there was a Guardia Civil patrol at the roundabout junction by the loop ordering trafficking and ensuring cars did not cut in.

The Guardia Civil was there on Tuesday too and I hope today as well. However my experience of these things is that we get a show of authority for a day or two and then it is back to unorganised chaos. One also has to question whether highly trained Guardia Civil officers are the right people for the job when there are local police in La Línea who could do it as effectively.

It is so far so good but much more needs to be done. True the Guardia Civil have cut out the queue jumping at the roundabout whilst they are there. The fact still remains that traffic has to be better managed in that zone.

The first point is that some of the cars that cut across at the roundabout are not coming on to Gibraltar but trying to get to that section of La Línea's port. It is ridiculous they should have to join the queue to get on to the Rock. However some people indicate they want to go to the port and then once through queue jump.

The second point is that on land by the final stretch of the access road is the Parking Solidario. This is a plot of land owned by the Algeciras port authority which the jobless in La Línea have been allowed to take over on a temporary basis to operate as a parking lot. It usually fills up quickly with many workers on Gibraltar parking their cars there every morning.

When it first started you could cross the traffic at the roundabout - loop and drive straight in to the parking lot. Now you have to go round the loop itself and then cut across the queuing traffic at the entrance. Needless to say this is a far from ideal situation and also allows for queue jumpers to pretend they are going to the parking when they are not.

Those operating the Parking Solidario are also unhappy that under the new regime with the Guardia Civil controlling drivers their customers are not allowed to cut across at all but have to join the Gibraltar queue. This is an inconvenience to them but also means the Gibraltar queue is longer that it should be because it has car park and port users amongst its number.

As I have said before the solution to the traffic queues cannot be a quick fix. There has to be designated lanes for Gibraltar traffic with easy access for car park and the port users. All this has to be free from the ability to abuse the system and has to be policed. We are far from that happy state as of yet but it's a start, it's a start.

The Gibraltar, Ceuta, Melilla triangle: Why Ceuta and Melilla might become Moroccan, but Gibraltar will never be Spanish

By David Eade

I had a sense of déjà vu when I read an interview with Angel Manuel Ballesteros in which he put forward the view that if Spain recovered in his words Gibraltar then Ceuta and Melilla could be handed over to Morocco.

Ballesteros is a former diplomat, ambassador, academic, writer and so on and so forth so his words are listened to in his native Spain. His exact words were: "Las diferencias en el pretendido paralelismo entre Gibraltar y Ceuta y Melilla son tan sustantivas que no sólo desautorizan la supuesta identidad sino que permiten demostrar la distinta entidad y, por ende, la independencia de los casos. Ahora bien, igualmente existe un approach geostratégico de nivel: ninguna potencia permitirá que España controle las dos orillas del Estrecho, o dicho de otra manera, cuando España recupere Gibraltar, las ciudades pasarán a Marruecos, que es el leitmotiv desde el vecino del sur."

I stated this gave me a sense of déjà vu because as long ago as the mid-1990s I wrote of a geopolitic that could well see a trade off between the powers. Morocco, a valued ally of the West, would be allowed to take possession of Ceuta and Melilla, which it claims for its own, and in return Spain would be compensated with Gibraltar.

I suspect such an outcome would as Ballesteros suggests be acceptable to Madrid. Even though it has made the two North African enclaves parts of mainland Spain, and although leading Spanish politicians and the Royal Family go there on high profile visits, the pressure is very much on from Rabat return them. If Spain could save face by getting Gibraltar in return then such a deal would be snapped up tomorrow.

I did say I wrote my article in the mid-1990s and the world and Gibraltar's status in it has changed a lot since then. What has not changed is the Ballesteros and Partido Popular mindset that believes a geopolitic deal with a change of sovereignty in the three territories is a possibility. It isn't.

What has not changed is that Morocco still claims Ceuta and Melilla. What has not changed is that Spain still claims Gibraltar. What has changed is that the people of Gibraltar now have the right to self determine their own future: a right that is openly recognised and underscored by both the British Government and the British Crown.

From the days just over a decade ago when Blair and Aznar tried to stitch a deal on Gibraltar together we are now in the situation that Gibraltar's "independence" has never been more assured within the British family. Gibraltarians also as a people have their right to self determine their own future clearly set down in international law.

Unfortunately for the people of Ceuta and Melilla they have no such rights because they are Spanish citizens. Hence if Madrid decided tomorrow to hand the enclaves over to Morocco they could either move to mainland Spain or stay put but they would have no say on that policy. So Ceuta and Melilla may well become Moroccan but Gibraltar will never become Spanish.

The Gibraltar MP debate

By David Eade

I am pleased that my article of last week on the UKIP MEP and leader Nigel Farage's proposal that the British Overseas Territories should have their own MP has generated a debate.

I also touched on whether Gibraltar should have a directly elected MP or whether our Government was effective enough at Westminster along with the All Party Gibraltar Group. I wrote that before the UK Prime Minister David Cameron invited our Chief Minister Fabian Picardo for talks ahead of the G8 Conference. This is the second visit by Picardo to No.10 this year and it is a credit to Gibraltar that we are now taken seriously in the corridors of power in London and at the EU with our views being sought.

I think the BOT or Gibraltar MP needs to be looked at also in comparison with the work done at Westminster by the All Party Group. I have already stated that for an MP to cover the entire BOTs would be an impossible task both physically but also because the interests of one area may not be compatible with those of another. One of the benefits of the All Party Group is that we have a team of MPs dedicated to protecting Gibraltar's interests and voicing our concerns in addition to our Government. It also means that whatever party is in government in the UK we will have MPs on those benches speaking for Gibraltar.

Now to Ken Westmoreland who has been sharing his views with me for more years than either of us wish to remember. On this issue Ken writes: "I read your article with interest, and actually wrote an email to Nigel Farage criticising what he was suggesting, because it did not take into account what each of the overseas territories want.

Politicians in the Falklands have actually been more hostile to the idea of representation at Westminster than Gibraltar have, while I doubt seriously that Bermuda or the Caribbean territories would favour it. While integration is something I would support, it is no longer something I advocate, and even when I have advocated it, I have regarded the issue of overseas territories' constitutional arrangements as a red herring. Neither the French nor the Dutch have a 'one size fits all' approach to their overseas territories.

"Farage mentioned the 'lesson' of Malta, but this was a totally different situation - the Maltese government under Dom Mintoff advocated integration and got the UK to agree to it, only for talks to founder on the issue of finance. It is not surprising that Whitehall has been unenthusiastic about the idea since.

"I, personally would like there to be overseas constituencies in the UK Parliament irrespective of what future the overseas territories may have; Italy, unlike France, no longer has overseas possessions, but it has twelve deputies and six senators for its expats (not 'ex-pats' - while I have been an expatriate, I have never been an 'ex-patriot!) This may be an anomaly, but no more than the old university constituencies, which gave some people an extra vote. However, I think that constitutional reform is off the agenda for the current UK for the foreseeable future, at least until the Scottish independence referendum is held and the outcome is known." Well you know my views and now you know Ken's. No doubt others will add still to the debate.

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