Could an independent Scotland stay in the EU? Yes, no and maybe

Jonathan Lindsell, 18 February 2014

Yesterday the EU Commission’s president Barroso said it would be ‘extremely difficult, if not impossible’.

I say, ‘Yes and No.’

The SNP claims that during its 18 months disengagement negotiations with rUK, iScotland would also be able to deal with the details of EU membership. Legally this makes sense – because it’s currently part of a member, Scotland already meets the ‘Copenhagen Criteria’, the hurdles of political organisation that Croatia has just crossed and Turkey or Serbia will need to leap.

Of course it’s in nobody’s interests to block iScotland from the single market (including tariff-free trade with rUK and Ireland) – but this will not necessarily come in the form of full EU membership immediately. The little precedent of EU secession we have include Algeria from France; Greenland from Denmark; and Saint Barthélemy from France. Each of these is complicated, but includes free trade in most kinds of goods, freer movement than an unaffiliated state, but not full EU membership.  They are all effectively ‘Preferential Trade Agreement’ partners. For a country Scotland’s size, this would look more like Norway’s situation in the EEA. However, iScotland wouldn’t have Norway’s upstream influence, as it would also be new to all the other bodies (WTO, UN).

Becoming a full member with representation and voting rights would be much harder, since Spain could threaten to veto. Belgium and Germany have voiced strong concerns about automatic Scottish membership too, and rUK would wield that power in case disengagement negotiations were in an extreme deadlock. In the meantime, Scotland would presumably be complying with all EU regulation, including the FTT which new research suggests will cost German savers €150.6bn!

First Minister Salmond mainly argues iScotland would be able to join Europe seamlessly because of the friendly, cooperative wording of the Treaties. This may be in the treaties’ spirit, but it is ultimately up to the Commission whether that spirit is followed, and if a man like Barroso heads the Commission, that would appear unlikely.

Full membership would take exhaustive negotiation on the Schengen agreement, on the currency, how many votes iScotland would get in institutions, and what reduction that means for rUK. The same would apply for the British rebate, which is likely to be hotly contested, though the Edinburgh Agreement implies rUK should help iScotland’s integration into the international system.

Assuming iScotland does join the club, it will have representation similar to Denmark, which has a very similar population and economy. Will Scottish interests really be represented? Denmark has 7 votes in the Council of Ministers – 2.03%. Of 766 MEPs, 13 are Danes. That’s 1.71%. Those 13 are elected by Proportional Representation, so in iScotland’s case will not pursue a unified stance on many matters.

So Salmond’s promise of a ‘seat at the main table’ would not be immediately true. It might happen eventually, but for a long period Scotland would be in a situation most analogous to Norway, conforming to EU market access rules without much influence over those rules.

(Last month I joked that the rUK would treat the iScots as foreigners – from a legal perspective, that’s what they would be within a generation. Certainly, if rUK then left the EU or iScotland joined Schengen, border relations could become a major sticking point)