Anti-British, Anti-Spanish

Here's an interesting article by David Lizoain in the Social Europe Journal, which is hard to disagree with in terms of its conclusion that Gibraltar is a 'rotten state' whose main contribution to Europe is smuggling and tax avoidance on an industrial scale.

Now I don't know about an ever closer union between the countries of Europe because that views seems to have been decisively rejected by voters in the recent Euro elections, but as far as I'm concerned there's not doubt that they way Gibraltar works at the moment is both anti-British and anti-Spanish.   

Abolish Gibraltar

By David Lizoain - Social Europe Journal

The conservative governments of Spain and the United Kingdom recently escalated tensions over Gibraltar, home of the Barbary macaque monkey. Mariano Rajoy, mired deep in a corruption scandal, needed to divert attention from his woes and chose the tired formula of provoking a territorial conflict. The spat is reminiscent of the battles of generals Tapioca and Alcazar in the world of Tintin. This past week, thousands of heroic Spanish users patriotically swamped a poll in the Telegraph asking whether Gibraltar is British or Spanish. Unfortunately, the Telegraph posed the wrong question. What we should be asking is “Why do privileged enclaves like Gibraltar continue to persist?

Prior to the Reform Act of 1832, the UK parliament was riddled with rotten boroughs. These were constituencies that had representation in spite of having a very small number of electors, on account of the population dwindling or moving away. The most notorious example was constituency of Old Sarum, with two MPs representing just seven voters. These overrepresented districts, controlled by a wealthy elite, stood in the way of the emergence of democracy.

Present day Europe is characterized not by rotten boroughs but by rotten states. So-called countries like Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino and Monaco are not historical nations but rather quirks of fate that have persisted down through the centuries. They serve as bases for smuggling, tax evasion, money laundering, banking secrecy, discount shopping and hence elite tourism.[1] It is a peculiar coincidence that the map of Western Europe is dotted by states or statelets (we can add the Channel Islands to the mix) nestled between major states.

The mini-state as an actual state (with a seat at the UN, etc.) is almost exclusive to Europe. Elsewhere it is primarily a legacy of imperialism. The British version, for instance, sprinkled statelets which now serve dubious ends (the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Gibraltar itself, etc.) across the globe. Over in Asia, the commercial entrepot of Singapore is a state but Hong Kong is not, while Goa was absorbed by India and Macao survives as a casino paradise.

In Europe, where the mini-states are concentrated, we can begin to draw a chain of analogies. It starts with those frontier-hugging outliers. It continues with states that are somewhat larger but also have their own peculiar tax and banking laws (Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta) and then onwards to Switzerland, the grandest rogue jurisdiction on the continent. Nothing stops us from advancing one step further and scrutinizing the particular tax arrangements in Ireland, or Austria, or the Netherlands, or even the City of London. The broader point is that an absence of tax harmonization makes it easy for the states of Europe to undercut one another. It would be ideal to modify the behaviour of the strongest countries, but perhaps more practical to start with the smallest.

Charles de Gaulle quickly forced Prince Rainier of Monaco to capitulate when he resisted applying an income tax on French citizens. Mini-states like Gibraltar do not sustain themselves on the basis of their own strength, but rather thanks to the protection of their patrons.

Is Gibraltar British or Spanish? Gibraltar is anti-British and anti-Spanish, no matter which flag it flies. These mini-states have no usefulness for the European (or global) population. They exist to serve the elites of the states that protect them. In the interest of an ever-closer union and a fuller democracy, they should all be abolished.

[1] We could also discuss the banking situation of the Vatican