Kevin, thanks for the recap.
Just reinforces the status of Gibraltar as the worst geopolitical
pimple on the face of the earth since Hong Kong and Macao became
SARs of China.
I mean, here you've got a place that Tony Blair has been trying to
dump off his plate, that still drives the Spanish nuts, that
is "outside" the EU for most practical purposes (customs, VAT), but
now the European Court of Human Rights decides that the electorate
of the South-West Region of England must have their representation
diluted to accomodate these free-riders.
Why those geniuses in Brussels didn't just treat Gibraltar like
Andorra or Switzerland in the first place is beyond me.
--- In BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, Kevin Meynell <knm@m...> wrote:
>
> >In the past, I would have been inclined to argue that Gibraltar
was a
> >separate country from GB&NI for purposes such as these,
especially since
> >the UK government tries to categorize Gibraltar as being
> >Overseas
>
> It would consider that it's effectively a separate country/state,
> particularly since there are immigration controls between the UK
and
> Gibraltar. It's certainly not an integral part of the United
Kingdom.
>
> >but since I have read that there is now a district for the EU
elections
> >consisting of Gibraltar and a part of Southwest England, I
suppose I must
> >reconsider.
>
> That's another issue. Gibraltar is the only UK overseas territory
that is
> part of the EU, but for various reasons, was never allowed to
participate
> in the European Parliamentary elections. However, this was
successfully
> challenged in the European Court of Human Rights which ruled that
the
> Gibraltarians should not be disenfranchised as decisions of the
European
> Parliament applied to them.
>
> Unfortunately, the population of Gibraltar is too small to justify
a
> separate constituency, and as the citizens of Gibraltar are
considered to
> be UK citizens for EU purposes, the only option was to include the
> territory in one of the UK electoral regions. It was considered
most
> appropriate to place it in the South-West Region of England as
this
> traditionally had the closest ties to the territory.
>
> Regards,
>
> Kevin Meynell