Diplomatic Bags (country, UK, cons, Vienna)

[Mr Blue Sky]

BBC News - Gibraltar bag incident: Spain 'promises no repeat', says UK

Mr Lidington told the Commons: "The explanation which the Spanish have given to us... was that this was an error at junior operational level at the crossing point between Gibraltar and Spain."
"The more senior Spanish official present put a stop to that interference with our official correspondence as soon as he realised what it was that was happening."
At PMQs the prime minister described the incident as "extremely serious" but said he was "reassured this will not happen again".

This is in reference to this, a Diplomatic Bag being opened by a Spanish official at the crossing between Gibraltar and Spain which is a violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. UNTC

Regardless of the situation between Spain and the UK Spain has, either by accident or intent, caused a bit of a stir in diplomatic circles. Spain has not come out of this well and I think there may be repercussions for quite a while longer than the story gets reported.

[viribusunitis]

Considering the fact that the British spying (in a quite obvious manner) on most of the other Union members was basically swept under the carpet, I doubt that this story has potential to actually cause a stir

[irish_bob]

what exactly is happening here ?

[Mr Blue Sky]

Originally Posted by viribusunitis

Considering the fact that the British spying (in a quite obvious manner) on most of the other Union members was basically swept under the carpet, I doubt that this story has potential to actually cause a stir

I'm not so sure. My government now requires me to be prepared to wait for a representative from our embassy before approaching Spanish officials. I also know that several other NATO countries have taken the same steps and we've revised instructions on how to proceed if we encounter 'issues' at Spanish borders.

We have separate and set instructions for various countries around the world but Spain is the only European country where the same now applies.