Doc. 9065
26 April 2001

Voting rights of the people living in Gibraltar

Motion for an order

presented by Mr Eörsi and others

This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only the members who have signed it

      The Assembly,

1.       Concerned by the fact that the people in Gibraltar are deprived from voting to the European Parliament;

2. Recalling that Gibraltar has been part of the territory of the European Union since 1 January 1973, under Article 227 (4) of the Treaty of Rome and that the people of Gibraltar are EU nationals and citizens of the Union;

3. Recalling that the United Kingdom Government claims that there was an oversight in respect of the 1976 EU Act on Direct Elections and that Gibraltar was left out, as Annex 2 states that the Act shall apply only in respect of the United Kingdom, and does not mention Gibraltar;

4.       Recalling also that the first direct elections to the European Parliament took place in 1979 and ever since people in Gibraltar have been insisting that Britain should include Gibraltar, and that, however, for a variety of reasons, this was refused;

5.       Recalling that, this being the case, the matter was taken to the European Court of Human Rights, and a ruling of the court in the case of Matthews v. United Kingdom of February 1999 maintained that the exclusion of Gibraltar from European elections placed Britain in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights, the judgment declaring that “The United Kingdom, together with all the other parties to the Maastricht Treaty, is responsible rationae materiae under Article 1 of the Convention and, in particular, under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, for the consequences of that Treaty”;

6. Recalling that in March 1999, Britain tabled the necessary amendments to European legislation in order to comply with the ruling of the court, in the General Affairs Council of the European Union. These amendments were not carried, and the matter has remained stuck ever since;

7. Stressing that, as a consequence, people in Gibraltar are still deprived from their voting rights, and the United Kingdom is also unable to comply with a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights,

8. Instructs its Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to discuss this matter and to submit a proposal to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on how to provide voting rights, as a basic human right, to the people of Gibraltar also on a European level.

Signed : ¹

Eörsi, Hungary, LDR

Budiša, Croatia, LDR

Čekuolis, Lithuania, LDR

Clerfayt, Belgium, LDR

Hancock, United Kingdom, LDR

Holovaty, Ukraine, LDR

Irmer, Germany, LDR

Ivanenko, Russia, LDR

Kresák, Slovakia, LDR

Liiv, Estonia, LDR

Mikutienė, Lithuania, LDR

Škrabalo, Croatia, LDR

Stankevič, Lithuania, LDR

Švec, Slovakia, LDR

¹        SOC: Socialist Group

      EPP/CD: Group of the European People’s Party

      EDG: European Democratic Group

      LDR : Liberal, Democratic and Reformers’ Group

      UEL: Group of the Unified European Left

      NR: not registered in a group