Spain ‘secretly’ lobbied US over Gibraltar

Congressmen were urged to back a plan to end Britain’s sole control of the territory, letters reveal

Spain embarked on a secret lobbying drive to push US congressmen into supporting a plan to strip Britain of sole sovereignty over Gibraltar, The

Daily Telegraph can reveal. Seven current and former members of the House of Representatives said the Spanish embassy in Washington DC pushed back after they signed a resolution backing Gibraltar’s British status. Some congressmen said the Spanish officials had been “belligerent” and “aggressive”.

SPAIN embarked on a secret lobbying drive to push US congressmen into supporting a plan to strip Britain of sole sovereignty over Gibraltar, The Daily Telegraph can reveal. Seven current and former members of the House of

Representatives told this newspaper the Spanish embassy in Washington DC pushed back after they signed a resolution backing Gibraltar’s British status or visited the territory.

Some congressmen said that while diplomats should be allowed to argue their case, Spanish officials were perceived at times as “belligerent”, “forceful”, “aggressive” and “over the line”. One said: “The Spaniards went nuts.”

One letter seen by this newspaper shows the former Spanish ambassador pushed a plan just months after the Brexit vote to end Britain’s sole sovereignty over Gibraltar. Under the plan, Gibraltar residents would get Spanish as well as British citizenship, and Madrid would get the same say in the territory’s foreign policy, defence and immigration as London. The Spain-gibraltar border would also disappear.

Other letters described Gibraltar as a “colony”, dismissed referendums where residents had rejected Spanish rule and made pointed references to Spain’s support of America in the fight against the Islamic State. The drive lasted from at least 2014 to 2019, according to accounts shared with this newspaper. Congressmen said it appeared to be an attempt to stop them speaking in favour of Gibraltar remaining a British Overseas Territory.

Gibraltar has been a point of contention between Britain and Spain for at least three centuries. It was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. In recent years, Spanish governments have sought shared sovereignty. Gibraltar residents overwhelmingly rejected that idea in a 2002 referendum.

Six serving congressmen said they received pressure over Gibraltar: George Holding and David Rouzer of

North Carolina, Ken Calvert and Paul Cook of California, Gerry Connolly of Virginia and Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin. The seventh politician who said he was lobbied, Rodney Frelinghuysen, retired as a congressman for New Jersey last year. All the politicians except for Mr Connolly are Republicans.

Mr Holding first introduced a resolution declaring that the House of Representatives “recognises Gibraltar as an overseas territory of the United Kingdom” in 2014 and has since tabled one in every new Congress. He said that Ramón Gil-casares, then the Spanish ambassador to the US, wrote him letters in 2014 and 2015 countering the statements in the resolution, which echoed the UK’S position.

A request for comment was submitted to the Spanish embassy in Washington along with summaries of each of the congressmen’s accounts.

An embassy source responded: “It is common practice for the embassy to communicate Spain’s position on different issues to the US Congress, Gibraltar among them. However, these communications cannot, by any means, be considered reprimands.”