Gibraltar

Gibraltar A peninsula on the Spanish coast, whose possession allows control over the Gibraltar Straits linking the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Under Spanish control since 1462, it was conquered by the British navy in 1704, became a British possession in 1713, and a Crown Colony in 1830. It was an important base for the Royal Navy from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Claimed by Spain, it received self-government in 1964. Negotiations between Britain and Spain about the status of Gibraltar broke down in 1966, and in a 1967 referendum 95 per cent of Gibraltarians voted against becoming part of Spain. In a frustrated gesture, and to force the population into submission, Franco closed the border in 1969. As a condition for British agreement to Spanish membership of the EC, some border traffic was allowed in 1982, with the border being fully reopened in 1985. In the early 1990s it suffered from the end of the Cold War, which led to the closure of some Royal Navy docks. Furthermore, its indirect membership of the European Union led to the British enforcement of stricter banking laws in 1996, damaging its reputation as a liberal tax haven. In 2001 the British and Spanish Foreign Ministers began negotiations over the future of Gibraltar. This led to fierce resistance by the head of the Gibraltar government, Peter Caruana of the Gibraltar Social Democrats, who feared that Britain would seek to hand over the colony to Spain against the wishes of Gibraltarians. Caruana organized a referendum for autumn 2002, calculating that an overwhelming popular rejection of joint sovereignty would increase pressure on the British government to abandon its talks with Spain.