Luis Ayllón
The announcement that Princess Anne of England, sister of King Charles III, will make a new visit to Gibraltar on November 17 and 18 as Honorary President of the International Literary Festival to be held in the British colony has caused discomfort in the Spanish Government, as The Diplomat learned from reliable sources.
The Office of the Governor of Gibraltar issued a statement yesterday announcing the visit of Anne of England, who will be accompanied by her husband, Vice-Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, but without offering details of the activity that she will carry out in the Rock.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not confirm to The Diplomat that any type of formal protest had been presented and it was noted that Spain’s reaction will be sent to the United Kingdom “through the usual channels.”
The intensity of this reaction, according to other sources, could depend on the program that Anne of England is going to carry out in Gibraltar, which, at the moment, is not known. Charles III’s sister already visited Gibraltar in 2004, on the occasion of the 300 years of the English presence in the Rock, and later in 2009. On this last occasion, she participated over three days in various events, one of them the inauguration of the Princess Royal Medical Centre, a hospital named in her honor and built on the isthmus that connects the Rock with the Iberian Peninsula, a territory that Spain did not cede to the British Crown by the Treaty of Utrecht, and of which the United Kingdom It was appropriated in the 19th century.
This circumstance caused greater discomfort in the Spanish Government, which was then chaired by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which formally protested to the United Kingdom, describing the displacement as “inopportune” and underlining that it was something that hurt the sensitivity of the Spanish population.
Visits by members of the Royal Family to the colony usually result in Spanish protests, although the British authorities ignore these complaints.
The last time Spain expressed its displeasure to the United Kingdom over the presence of a member of the British Royal Family in Gibraltar was in May of last year, when it was learned that the Counts of Wessex were planning to travel to the Rock to participate in the events. commemorating the 70th anniversary of the accession to the throne of Queen Elizabeth II of England.
The Spanish Government did not specify whether the protest was made through a note verbale or whether the United Kingdom ambassador in Madrid was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but they assured The Diplomat that this Department conveyed to the British authorities its displeasure over the announced trip to the Rock of the youngest son of Elizabeth II, Prince Edward of England and his wife, on the occasion of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
“Spain – the sources consulted then said – considers that the visit is not opportune, within the framework of the negotiation process for a future EU-United Kingdom Agreement on Gibraltar and the bilateral agreements between Spain and the Kingdom that are necessary for the application of said Agreement, which will define new relations between Gibraltar and the European Union.”
The trip of Princess Anne of England and her husband will take place shortly after Fabian Picardo has renewed his mandate as chief minister of the colony, after the elections of last October 12, and when the negotiations between the European Commission and the United Kingdom on the future of the Rock after Brexit, are frozen, mainly because in Spain – which will have the last word on this possible agreement between Brussels and London – it has not yet been possible to form a new Government after the last elections July.
The Gibraltarian authorities usually welcome royal visits with great satisfaction – they see them as a consolidation of British sovereignty over the Rock – which, in addition to the two aforementioned visits by Princess Anne, have included the stay of the then Prince Charles and Lady Di in their honeymoon in 1981, which caused the Kings of Spain not to attend the wedding ceremony.
Subsequently, there were other trips by members of the British Royal House and the subsequent protests, such as, in October 1993 and July 1995, for stays of Duke York, Prince Andrew, third son of Elizabeth II. In May 1996 it was the Queen’s husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, who made a working visit on the occasion of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards and in 1998 the Duke of Kent, the Queen’s cousin, visited the Rock; the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Princess Alexandra. In 2001, the Government of José María Aznar (PP) also protested another visit by Prince Edward of England to the colony.
Last September, the British Ministry of Defense decided to suspend an exhibition in Gibraltar of the ‘Red Arrows’, the RAF’s aerial aerobatic patrol, after the Spanish authorities pressured those of the United Kingdom, pointing out that it They would consider it an unfriendly gesture.
