Gibraltar, Land Reclamation, the Environment and Brexit

Abstract

The implementation of EU environmental legislation in Gibraltar will be analyzed in this Paper. An study strongly affected by the historical Anglo-Spanish dispute concerning sovereignty over Gibraltar (Rock and Isthmus), which also extends to the surrounding maritime spaces, the airspace over the territory and the internal waters of the port of Gibraltar. Since environmental matters are the responsibility of the Government of Gibraltar, this latter is also responsible for transposing environmental directives, whereas the UK is answerable to the EU for compliance with them.
It also will be analyzed the lack of cooperation between the States, that is evidenced by the overlapping of spaces protected surrounding Gibraltar, as Sites of Community Importance (SCI) and Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), for which the adoption of conservation measures is envisaged, including regulation of fishing activity and navigation, environmental impact assessment of projects with transboundary effects that may derive from the practice of land reclamation (in accordance with the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive), pollution prevention, bunkering and scientific research. For several years, these activities have been challenged at the European level by the NGO ‘Campo de Gibraltar Verdemar-Ecologists in Action Association’, and have also been the subject of complaints and protests on the part of the Spanish Government to the UK.
Finally, the effect of Brexit on marine environment protection and the expansion of maritime spaces around Gibraltar will be studied, specially the Spanish-British Memorandum of Understanding of 2018 on environmental cooperation which was referenced by the Protocol on Gibraltar included in the Agreement on the Withdrawal of the UK from the EU.