Hong Kong visas caught in Gibraltar clash

Date: 31/07/1997

By Simon Coss

SPAIN'S long-running dispute with the UK over the status of Gibraltar is threatening to undermine efforts to keep Hong Kong residents off the EU's compulsory visa list.

In 1995, Union governments passed a regulation listing those countries whose residents must have a visa when visiting any of the EU's 15 member states.

China was on the list, but Hong Kong, then under UK rule, was not. At the time, London felt it had scored something of a diplomatic victory. It was never envisaged that the list, once agreed, would be substantially altered and the UK was happy that it had secured a deal which would remain in place even after Hong Kong's return to Chinese rule.

But London's carefully laid plans have been blown off course by the European Court of Justice, which ruled in June that the regulation was invalid because MEPs had not been adequately consulted when it was being drawn up and told national governments to go away and re-draft it.

As a result, Hong Kong's status is once again up for discussion - and it has now become clear that Spain intends to use the issue as a weapon in its continuing Gibraltar offensive.

When the UK handed Hong Kong back to the Chinese last month, there were mutterings in Madrid about 'double standards' on London's part. While the UK was prepared to hand back one colonial possession to a regime regularly criticised for its human rights record, it was not willing to return Gibraltar to an EU neighbour, said critics.

At a meeting of the Union's K4 committee (which prepares the ground for justice and home affairs ministers' meetings) last week, Spanish officials refused to agree to British proposals that Hong Kong be exempted from the new list.

The committee will meet again in early September and justice and home affairs ministers may discuss the issue at an informal meeting in Luxembourg a month later.