Duty free and Gibraltar

[howard18]

I'm currently watching a series on life in Gibraltar which is being broadcast on Chanel 5.
Since I guess that most of us have visited the rock at sometime I wonder if someone can answer the following.

Why do the police stop tobacco leaving Gibraltar? The allowance seems to be that Spanish or anyone leaving the rock by land has an allowance of 200 cigs. You leave by sea - no upper limit. I know that they are not very fond of the Spaniards, but this seems a bit bizarre. I'd love to know.

Howard

[Quizzical Bob]

I would assume that export by ship is nothing to do with the European Community but export into Spain is a different matter.

[howard18]

Yes Bob but why are they doing the Spaniards job for them.
You don't find Egypt (for example) stopping people leaving the country if they are carrying a large amount of cigarettes and heading for London or Madrid.

[howard18]

QB
I couldn't let this one go.
I joined a Gibraltar forum and posed the question to them.
I had to wait five days for a response. But it seems that they dislike the Spanish so much they see no reason why they should do them any favours and let them have any cheap cigarettes or alcohol.

Howard

[Quizzical Bob]

QB
I couldn't let this one go.
I joined a Gibraltar forum and posed the question to them.
I had to wait five days for a response. But it seems that they dislike the Spanish so much they see no reason why they should do them any favours and let them have any cheap cigarettes or alcohol.

Howard

Ok, seems fair enough to me although I'd have thought Spain was cheap enough anyway.

[sumdumbloke]

Yes Bob but why are they doing the Spaniards job for them.
You don't find Egypt (for example) stopping people leaving the country if they are carrying a large amount of cigarettes and heading for London or Madrid.

As part of the 'negotiations' about sovereignty every few years local agreements are made about cross border activities.

Far from it being an anti Spanish thing, the focus on tobacco smuggling was as a result of Spanish claims that cross-border smuggling was undermining local Spanish businesses, so it was done as part of a package of measures to build confidence on both sides.

Of course it collapses every few years when there is a 'spat'. On the Spanish side they delay people crossing, and on the British side they wave through people weighed down with contraband!

[howard18]

Seems like the correspondent must have been putting up a smoke screen.