Spain snubs UK Queen’s jubilee lunch

The move came a week after Spain’s Foreign Ministry issued a formal complaint to Britain’s Ambassador in Madrid over the planned jubilee visit by the Queen’s youngest son Prince Edward and his wife the Countess of Wessex to the disputed territory of Gibraltar sitting at Spain’s southwestern corner.

Queen Sofia had earlier accepted the UK’s invitation to lunch at Windsor Castle on Friday May 18, but the Spanish government urged her not to attend due to being “inappropriate in the current circumstances.”

The UN Special Committee on Decolonization lists the name of Gibraltar alongside other British colonies, including Las Malvinas (Falklands), that should be liberated.

Britain invaded and captured Gibraltar in 1704 and Spain ceded its sovereignty to Britain nine years later, as part of the treaty that ended the War of Succession in Europe, yet the details of the treaty on Gibraltar are a point of contention for both sides.

While in 2004 the Madrid government banned all cruise ships that call at the Rock from entering Spanish ports, the UK government condemned the ban as illegal and in total disregard of the UN’s position on the subject.

SSM/SS/HE

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