Questioning Scotland’s presence

It was disappointing to find one of the new Tory MSPs has written to the UK Foreign Office questioning Scotland’s international presence.

I call it disappointing as even before devolution in 1999 Scotland had a Brussels office, which was established under these same Tories.

This presence was developed under Labour and the Liberal Democrats and has been continued since 2007 by the SNP. Now there is a network of offices around the world that promote Scotland, its economy and tourism.

Scotland House in Brussels, for example, acts as the eyes and ears of the Scottish Government, Scotland Europa, Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International.

It is an effective platform to manage diplomatic engagement, economic engagement and cultural promotion.

Scotland is one of more than 300 regional and sub-state authorities, including 28 from Germany, 21 from Italy and 18 from Poland.

And non-EU states like Norway are also represented by six regional offices.

Indeed, Scotland has a smaller international presence than many sub-states such as Bavaria, Flanders and Quebec.

In addition, Denmark and Belgium give the Faroes, Greenland and Flanders officials parity of esteem and work together with central government, recognising the important role they play. While everyone else is doing their best to promote themselves, it is bizarre, but maybe not unexpected, for the Tories to try to undermine Scotland’s ability to do so.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh.