No off-traffic operations, no high temperatures, no arrival of the first umbrellas on the Benidorm beaches. If there’s one big summer story, it’s the ongoing disputes between Spain and the United Kingdom over Gibraltar. Over the past two decades tensions between London and Madrid have periodically flared during the hot season, affecting the British territory through border delays and frequent naval incidents, with Civil Guards patrolling the waters around the rock.
In July 2009 Gibraltar readied for a historic moment: the first visit to the Rock by a Spanish minister in three centuries since Spain ceded sovereignty to the United Kingdom under the Treaty of Utrecht. It marked the third meeting of the Tripartite Forum, backed by the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, with the slogan two flags three voices giving Gibraltar a seat at the negotiation table between the United Kingdom and Spain.
But a few days later, Peter Caruana, the then prime minister of the Rock, stirred the already tense waters by urging Gibraltar fishermen to ignore the Civil Guard’s demands if they believed the orders were improper. He advised them to discard the Meritorious, a tool that could be used to call for help when needed.
The control of the sea around the Rock remains a core source of friction between the two governments and a recurring summer headline. In the middle are the fishermen, pawns in a long standing geopolitical chess game. That year, clashes escalated: in December, four Civil Guard agents were held for two hours after following a suspicious vessel into the port of El Peñón. Tensions reached near surreal levels when a Civil Guard patrol boat insisted that Royal Navy target practice against a buoy bearing the Spanish flag did not imply Spain’s flag itself. The Foreign Office had to summon the British ambassador in Madrid, who clarified that the yellow and red buoy did not represent the Spanish ensign.
Three years later, political leadership in both Spain and its neighboring territory shifted. On August 20, 2012, the new prime minister, Fabian Picardo, declared the Rock and its adjacent waters a special environmental protection zone. In practice, this move restricted fishing with nets around the rock, a practice that had been ongoing since March.
concrete blocks
Yet the summer of 2013 is often remembered as the moment when diplomatic tensions peeled away their disguises. Gibraltar planned to build an artificial reef in a common fishing corridor and dumped seventy concrete blocks into the sea. The Spanish government accused Gibraltar of violating international law, a claim the Rock rejected as its own waters. The strains were such that Gibraltar police clashed with Spanish fishermen in the bay. A year later, divers from a Spanish organization removed one of the blocks in a protest, an episode that drew wide attention. A far right leader once photographed atop a crowd and posted the image online in 2016, underscoring how domestic politics can amplify regional frictions. Spain continued to press claims, routinely enforcing border controls at the Gate between El Peñón and La Línea de la Concepción, a checkpoint that frequently caused long queues and travel delays for people crossing the frontier.
During those years the embassy in London faced a heavy workload. Each summer the British Foreign Office summoned the Spanish diplomat to report on the latest Gibraltar-related tensions, while Spain reciprocated by calling the British ambassador in Madrid to account for developments on the Rock and the surrounding waters.
nuclear submarines
Environmental groups brought Gibraltar into the spotlight again in 2006 when the US Navy submarine USS Memphis docked at the Gibraltar naval base as a routine break en route to Lebanon. Local residents joined ecologists in protesting the presence of what they called floating weapons. In memory, the earlier nuclear submarine Tireless, which docked in 2000, was undergoing repair due to a reactor issue. The sight of nuclear submarines has long shaped the bay’s image and has strained UK Spanish relations. At a tripartite forum meeting, the British Ministry of Defense pledged not to repair damage to any nuclear vessel in the area.
One August morning in 2007, Gibraltar residents woke to news of a collision between a cargo ship and an oil tanker in the waters surrounding the Rock. The oil tanker was partly sunk, and subsequent investigations showed it had sailed from Gibraltar to the Mediterranean without proper authorization. The incident highlighted gaps in coordination and information sharing between Gibraltar port authorities and those in nearby Algeciras, with environmental and economic consequences for the region.
In the era of pandemic and Brexit, Gibraltar headlines continue to center on the same underlying theme: relations between Spain and the United Kingdom. Negotiations about Gibraltar’s status after Brexit have continued for months, aiming to define a path that respects the interests of both neighbors who do not always see eye to eye, yet share a long, intertwined history and a common stake in regional stability.