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2. GIBRALTAR: RETALIATION AGAINST SPAIN (Previous Reference: OPD(67) 20th Meeting, Item 1)
The Committee considered a memorandum by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretaries (OPD(67) 56) on Gibraltar:
against Spain.
retaliation
THE FOREIGN SECRETARY said that, despite the announcement of our decision to carry out a referendum in Gibraltar in September, Spain had
not recently increased her pressure against Gibraltar. This night
perhaps be because the tourist season was approaching its peak or
because she did not wish to prejudice her position in the forthcoming
consideration by the International Civil Aviation Organisation of our case against the restrictions which Spain had placed on air traffic
into Gibraltar Airport. Nevertheless, we should consider what retalia-
tory measures we might take should Spain take further action against Gibraltar, although specific decisions on these should not be taken until the need arose. It would be against our interests to take
retaliatory action against trade between this country and Spain, which
might cause disproportionately heavy damage to us, and measures openly
directed against British tourists going to Spain were likely to cause
resentment and, as a result, to weaken their impact. If measures in
these fields were ruled out we were left with four types of retaliation
which might be used in appropriate circumstances. We could take
diplomatic action by withdrawing our Ambassador from Madrid or, if an
incident were sufficiently serious, by breaking off diplomatic relations with Spain; we could limit non-scheduled flights in 1968 from this
country to airports in southern Spain, thus reducing somewhat the flow
of tourists to Spain; we could step up publicity about the Spanish record
as a colonial power by comparison with our efforts on behalf of self-
determination for the inhabitants of Gibraltar; and finally, we could
ban the entry into Gibraltar of the 5,000 Spaniards who went there daily
to earn their living, making arrangements for them to be replaced by
workers from Morocco. We should be ready if necessary to adopt any of
these measures of retaliation, though leaving decisions on precisely what
action to take until the nature of Spanish action was known.
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