Luis Ayllón
The Spanish government has remained silent on the announcement of a new visit to Gibraltar later this week by Princess Anne, sister of King Charles III, despite the fact that, on other occasions, Spain has protested to the United Kingdom about this type of royal visit.
On 27 October, the Gibraltar Governor’s Office issued a statement announcing that Anne of England and her husband, Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence, would be visiting the Rock on 17 and 18 November. The official reason is to take part in the Literary Festival being held on those days in the British colony, of which the Princess is the honorary president.
The Diplomat was able to confirm at the time that the visit is not to the Spanish government’s liking, but the official response received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the question of whether any kind of protest would be made to London was that Spain’s reaction would be conveyed to the UK ‘through the usual channels’.
Other sources then indicated that this response could depend on the programme to be carried out by Anne of England in Gibraltar, something that remains unknown in detail.
In any case, with only a few days to go before the visit, the Foreign Ministry has not lodged any kind of complaint with the UK.
This attitude contrasts with that of Anne of England’s last visits to Gibraltar – in 2004, to mark 300 years of British presence on the Rock, and then in 2009 – when there were formal protests to London. In 2009, he took part in various events over three days, including the inauguration of the Princess Royal Medical Centre, a hospital named in his honour and built on the isthmus that links the Rock to the Iberian Peninsula, a territory that Spain did not cede to the British Crown under the Treaty of Utrecht, and which the UK appropriated in the 19th century.
The Spanish government, then led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, described the move as “inappropriate” and stressed that it hurt the sensibilities of the Spanish population.
Visits by members of the Royal Family to the colony are usually met with Spanish protests, although the British authorities ignore such complaints. On the contrary, such visits are warmly welcomed by the Gibraltar government, which sees them as a consolidation of British sovereignty over the Rock.
The last time Spain made its displeasure known to the UK about the presence of a member of the British Royal Family in Gibraltar was in May last year, when it became known that the Earls of Wessex were planning to travel to the Rock to take part 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 at the time whether the protest was made by means of a note verbale or whether the UK ambassador in Madrid was summoned to the Foreign Office, but they assured The Diplomat that this department had informed the British authorities of its displeasure at the announced visit to the Rock by 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 said at the time, “considers the visit to be inappropriate in the context of the negotiation process for a future EU-United Kingdom Agreement on Gibraltar and the bilateral agreements between Spain and the UK that are necessary for the implementation of this Agreement, which will define new relations between Gibraltar and the European Union”.
The trip of Princess Anne and her husband will take place shortly after Fabian Picardo renewed his mandate as Chief Minister of the colony, following the elections of 12 October, and when negotiations between the European Commission and the United Kingdom on the future of the Rock after Brexit are frozen, mainly because Spain – which will have the last word on this possible agreement between Brussels and London – has not yet formed a new government after the elections last July.
