ECJ – Judgement of 12.09.2006, Spain v. United Kingdom, C-145/04 - EP – Elections – Right to vote – Commenwealth citizens residing in Gibraltar and not having citizenship of the Union.

Abstract

The judgment under study concerns the controversy between Spain and the United Kingdom on the sovereignty of Gibraltar and affects the legal status of Gibraltar in the European Union. The point of departure for this study stems from the adoption by the United Kingdom of the European Parliament (Representation) Act –EPRA 2003, in order to comply with the judgment of the ECHR in the case of Matthews vs UK, 1999. Spain points out that its action covers solely elections as they are held in Gibraltar and not the United Kingdom’s recognition of the right to the so-called Qualifying Commonwealth Citizens (QCCs) residing in its territory to vote for the European Parliament. It raises two pleas in law in support of its action: a) By the first, it claims that the extension of the right to vote in European Parliament elections, as provided for by the EPRA 2003, to persons who are not United Kingdom nationals for the purposes of Community law infringes the EC Treaty’s Articles that, according to the Spanish claims, recognise the right to vote and to stand as candidates of citizens of the European Union alone; b) By the second, it claims that the creation of a combined electoral region (combing the territory of Gibraltar with an existing electoral region in England to form a new electoral region) is contrary to the annex I of the Act concerning the election of the representatives of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage (1976) and to the commitments made by the United Kingdom Government in the Declaration of February 18, 2002. But the ECJ dismissed the action of Spain. In our opinion, a Spanish argument focused on the limitations of the annex I of the 1976 Act would have been able to direct the arguments of the parties and the foundations of the ECJ to a different ending.