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Article: Bid for European Unity Stumbles on Gibraltar;Residents Keeping Britain, Spain Apart
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- October 7, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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This stubborn little community perched on the edge of the
continent is gaining a reputation as a spoiler of Western European
efforts to integrate.
The Gibraltar promontory, 2 1/2 miles long and less than a mile
wide, juts into the Mediterranean Sea from the southern Spanish
coast. But while the logic of its geography makes it part of Spain,
the last three centuries of history have made it British.
During the long dictatorship of Francisco Franco, the 20th
century world had little sympathy for Madrid's claims to The Rock.
Spain's now-thriving democracy, plus its entry into NATO and the
European Community, however, led Britain to acknowledge the anomaly
of maintaining the last colony on the ...