Gibraltar Ship Tax: Morocco’s Bold Plan for Underwater Tunnel Funding

Hamid Bouchikhi, sitting on the Higher Council of Education, submits to diplomacy an idea he himself deems potentially "far-fetched": charging boats navigating between Spanish and Moroccan coasts. To justify this monetization, the former member of the Commission on the Development Model relies on the Strait of Hormuz. If the international community allows Iran to collect passage fees there, it creates a legal precedent that can be transposed to Gibraltar. The western gateway to the Mediterranean indeed records 100,000 annual transits, a traffic three times higher than that of Hormuz.

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Officially, maritime law prohibits obstructing free international navigation. However, the billing would target ecological impact by strictly applying the "polluter pays" principle. According to information relayed by La Razon, the narrow fourteen-kilometer maritime strip concentrates massive pollution suffered without any compensation by the two coastal countries. Facing carbon dioxide emissions, fine particles and noise disturbing cetaceans, entry fees would be calculated according to each ship’s actual emissions. Thus, a huge heavy fuel oil tanker would pay a significantly higher bill than a vessel operating on clean gas.

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More than a simple standard fee, this mechanism positions itself as a genuine environmental policy lever, similar to carbon pricing adopted by the International Maritime Organization. The ultimate ambition of this taxation is to collect the necessary funds to realize the construction of the underwater tunnel connecting the two continents. In the long term, this underground physical link would offer a sustainable transport alternative, capable of drastically reducing current crossing costs.