Gibraltar is a benchmark finance centre of Europe

Gibraltar

History

  • Historically Gibraltar is known as one of the two mythical pillars of Hercules.
  • In 711 Tarik-ibn-Ziyad, the Governor of Tangiers, invaded the Rock and named it Djebel al-Tarik, which means ‘the mountain of Tarik’, from which the name Gibraltar derives.
  • By the end of the re-conquest by Spain from the Moors the Rock was Spanish again in 1462.
  • In 1704, during the war of the Spanish succession, Gibraltar was invaded by an Anglo-Dutch fleet.
  • The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 confirmed Gibraltar as a territory of Great Britain, respectively a British Crown Colony.
  • The Rock’s defences enabled it to resist two sieges by Spanish and French forces in 1727 and from 1779 to 1783.
  • In 1969 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II opened the Gibraltar House of Parliament so that Gibraltar could be self-governed in all matters except external and internal security, foreign affairs and financial stability.
  • In the same year General Franco decided to close the border completely between Gibraltar and Spain.
  • In 1973 Gibraltar entered, together with the U.K., into the European Union.
  • The Lisbon Declaration on the 10th of April 1980 established that Spain would remove all restrictions against Gibraltar and on the 27th of November 1984 this Declaration was reaffirmed by the Brussels Agreement. At midnight on the 4th of February 1985 the frontier between Gibraltar and Spain was re-opened after 16 years of closure.