Spain 'partly backed' over Gibraltar voting rights

A senior legal adviser at the European Union’s court of justice in Luxembourg today sided with Spain in a legal case launched against Britain, agreeing that electoral laws in Gibraltar allowing non-EU citizens the right to vote in European elections violated EU treaty rules.

In his legal opinion to the EU court, Advocate General Antonio Tizzano said that, while Britain had an obligation to extend voting rights to British citizens in Gibraltar, a 2003 act to extend such rights to citizens of the British Commonwealth who are not British or citizens of any other EU country “infringes” EU law.