Spanish fisheries protection vessel entered our waters and inspected a vessel’s papers

May of last year we had the first incident of a different and more serious kind. That was when a Spanish fisheries protection vessel entered our waters and inspected a vessel’s papers. This was therefore not just a case of incursion, but also of exercising executive competence and policing powers in our territorial waters. During the last 18 months we have been making it clear to both London and Madrid that this new Spanish behaviour was not consistent with, and was bound to impact on, the viability of co-operation in matters relating to waters.

The incident of 28th September was the first of an even more serious kind, in which the Guardia Civil, by the threat and use of physical force against RGP officers, prevented them from exercising the RGP’s powers and jurisdiction in our own waters. In the process, they enabled, assisted and indeed secured the escape onto the Guardia Civil launch of a person who was already under the lawful arrest and physical custody of the RGP. This they achieved by the use of physical force against RGP Officers. They then took away to Spain, in the Guardia Civil launch, the person whose escape from arrest they had themselves achieved, ignoring RGP requests to return him to their custody.

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