Rejoining the EU looks set to get much easier for an independent Scotland
Speymouth
According to former SNP MP and MEP Alyn Smith, who is well informed about developments within the EU, joining the EU looks set to become a whole lot easier for an independent Scotland. The EU Commission is proposing to revamp and speed up the process through which states which are candidates for EU membership accede to membership of the Union. If these proposals are adopted, as Alyn Smith believes to be highly likely, then an independent Scotland could rapidly find itself back in the EU with Scottish businesses enjoying unfettered access to 465 million consumers in the European Single Market comprised of EU and EFTA states and a restoration of freedom of travel and settlement throughout Europe for Scottish citizens.
Late last year, the highly influential European Policy Centre published a report, A Test of Times, which set out proposals to revise and speed up the accession process for candidate states to become a part of the EU. The report was written in response to the geopolitical challenges which currently face Europe, in particular the war in Ukraine and the increasing unreliability of the United States as an ally of Europe under its unpredictable and intensely corrupt authoritarian president. The report concludes that the current accession process is too slow and unwieldy and makes a number of proposals to streamline it and speed it up.
You can read the full report here:
Click to access Enlargement_Reform-Web__1_.pdf
Billed as “reverse enlargement”, the proposed new accession process is intended to be more dynamic. The tldr version essentially allows candidate states partial membership of the EU with full access to the European Single Market and representation in the European Parliament and Commission while work is in progress to comply with the complete set of requirements for full EU membership. Although the paper was written with the idea of fast tracking EU membership for Ukraine and candidate member states in the Balkans, it could also have a dramatic and positive impact on Scottish hopes of returning to the EU. Scotland’s forced exit from the EU was the greatest single betrayal of the promises which were made to Scotland by the Better Together campaign during the 2014 independence referendum campaign.
Scots were falsely told that a Yes vote for independence would entail Scotland’s immediate ejection from the EU, yet we learned from the bitter experience of Brexit that it took almost four years from the EU referendum of 2016 for the UK to exit the EU, that would have given an independent Scotland ample time to accede to the EU in its own right given that as the former part of a member state it was already in full compliance with EU membership requirements and there was and is no majority desire within Scotland to leave the EU.
As is well known, 62% of Scots voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 EU referendum. That Scottish result was completely discounted and ignored by a Conservative government which pressed ahead with a hard Brexit in contravention of promises made by the Leave campaign which had insisted that a leave vote would not mean leaving the Single Market and Customs Union or an end to the freedom of movement and settlement throughout the EU which British citizens had hitherto enjoyed. Now British citizens may only visit an EU country for a maximum of 90 days in any 180 day period and will face biometric checks on entering the EU.
According to the most recent opinion poll, 73% of Scots favour a return to the EU but under Starmer the Labour party has fully signed up to the Conservatives’ hard Brexit. Even the Lib Dems previously the most pro-EU of the British political parties, has watered down its policy on rejoining the EU. There is no realistic prospect of the UK rejoining the EU for decades. The only route open to the overwhelming majority of Scots who desire a return to EU membership is through an independent Scotland joining the EU in its own right.
Now the EU Commission is proposing to allow partial EU membership in 2027, giving Ukraine EU status and a seat at the top table, before it has fulfilled all the usual criteria, with these rights and obligations being phased in later. This fast track membership process would also apply to other potential member states which have demonstrated a commitment to the European project. In this regard Scotland would be a shoo-in. Scotland is seeking independence from a state which has left the EU in no small measure due to public dissatisfaction within Scotland at being taken out of the EU against the will of the majority of the people of Scotland. You don’t get a stronger demonstration of commitment to the European project than that.
Additionally, unlike Ukraine or Kosovo, other candidate members to which this speedier accession process would apply, Scotland is neither embroiled in a war or dispute with a neighbouring state which rejects its right to independence or claims all or part of its territory. Unlike Albania, Scotland does not have serious issues with organised crime at all levels of government, and unlike Georgia Scotland has strong and robust democratic institutions. Scotland is already in compliance with most of the criteria required of an EU member state and would be considered an ideal candidate.
At this juncture I need to repeat something that has previously been covered numerous times on this blog. Spain would categorically not veto Scotland’s accession to the EU in order to discourage the Basques and Catalans. Spain objects to Catalan and Basque independence and refuses to recognise the independence of Kosovo because Basque or Catalan independence and the independence of Kosovo are prohibited by the constitutions of Spain and Serbia, from which the Albanian majority Kosovo declared independence in 2008. There is no such constitutional prohibition on Scottish independence in the UK and by agreeing to the independence referendum in 2014, the British Government accepted the right of Scotland to self-determination. Spain thus would have no reason to object to Scottish independence as it does not set a constitutional precedent which the Catalans or Basques could follow.
The repeated claims of a Spanish veto are based on a self-serving and wilful British nationalist misunderstanding of the nature and motive for a Spanish veto.
Should these new proposals for EU enlargement be adopted, an independent Scotland could find itself back in the EU and with full freedom of movement restored to Scottish citizens within a few months of independence. This could be a game changing argument in a future independence referendum campaign.
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