Brussels, 31/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has announced that in three months time it will be analysing the British law on voting rights in European elections for the inhabitants of Gibraltar. In a letter addressed to the Secretariat General of the European executive on Monday, Spain protested against this law promulgated by London on 8 May. Spain believes that the law goes against Community law, and is basing its approach on Article 227 of the treaty, according to which all EU Member States can go to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg if they consider that one or other of its partners has failed to meet its obligations as a Member State. The law being challenged considers that Gibraltar is an example of British electoral circumscription, which goes against the rights of European citizens.
Madrid is particularly opposed to the British law that allows people who are not citizens of the EU to take part in the next European elections. The law in question allows Gibraltar to determine its electoral status according to its own rules, according to which any Commonwealth national could take part in the European elections simply because they reside in Gibraltar, whereas the United Kingdom itself does not consider Commonwealth nationals as European citizens. The Spanish government also considers that the British law affects the concept of European citizenship by creating different kinds of European citizens for different electoral purposes and that it could also possibly have an effect on the issue of free movement. Madrid is also challenging the system put in place by London assimilating Gibraltar into British the electoral jurisdiction, which it considers as a breach of the British electoral law used in 1976 in the elections to the European Parliament for which the field of application was exclusively limited to the United Kingdom and therefore excluded Gibraltar. At the same time, Spain is seeking to prevent European citizens residing on the "Rock" from voting or being elected in European elections.
When questioned on this affair, Pietro Petrucci, the European Commission spokesman for justice and home affairs Commissioner Antonio Vitorino, indicated that the Commission was going to examine in three months' time whether the British law posed problems with regard to the European directive governing the right to vote for European citizens. This is a "very clear" directive insofar as it stipulates that all European citizens residing in another Member State has the right to vote in local, municipal and European elections, he explained. The Commission will also be examining the status of British citizens who wish to take part in the European election, explained Mr Petrucci, adding that, "Initial impressions suggest that the Commission considers that Commonwealth citizens did not have British citizenship". Mr Vitorino's spokesman also said that the Commission was also going to check whether it would be qualified for studying this case. It undoubtedly should be, as Mr Petrucci noted that the Commission was the European institution in charge of monitoring the correct application of the treaties.