STRASBOURG — The U.K. government said it was “extremely disappointed” after the European Parliament accused Gibraltar of undermining sanctions against Russia in a vote to keep the territory on the EU’s money-laundering watchlist.

A strong majority of 490 MEPs voted to block the removal of Gibraltar — a British overseas territory — from the list, along with the UAE, Barbados, Panama and Uganda.

The text approved by the European Parliament said there was “important and recent evidence suggesting” the countries “lack efforts in addressing, or even facilitate the evasion of, sanctions imposed on Russia” and “may act as platforms for circumvention of sanctions” against Russia.

A spokesperson for the U.K. government, who declined to be named, said it was “completely inaccurate and unsubstantiated to suggest Gibraltar is undermining sanctions efforts against Russia.”

The spokesperson added: “U.K. sanctions apply in full, and are enforced, in all U.K. overseas territories and crown dependencies.”

The European Commission and the EU’s diplomatic service — which both want to remove Gibraltar and the other countries from the list — criticized the text ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

The MEPs’ vote means Gibraltar will stay on the EU’s list of high-risk countries and EU banks will have to conduct “enhanced due diligence” on cash transfers with the territory, making it harder to do business with it.

Global watchdog the Financial Action Task Force removed the countries from its watchlist in February, prompting the Commission’s move to remove them from the EU’s list too.

In a statement after the vote, the government of Gibraltar said the European Parliament's stance is "clearly not the result of any technical assessment" and is a "position poisoned by politics," name-checking specific Spanish MEPs and political groups.

The move comes at an awkward time for EU-U.K. relations, as the two hammer out the final details of a future agreement on Gibraltar — which was left out of the overall Brexit deal at Spain’s insistence.

U.K. foreign minister David Cameron visited the territory earlier this month to discuss the details of an agreement, which both sides said achieved “significant progress” in a joint statement. They said the deal would be concluded "over the coming weeks."

A second text, which was voted down by EU lawmakers, referred to Gibraltar as a "colony" of the U.K. The U.K. government spokesperson said it “reject[s] the outdated characterization."