‘No place for independent Scotland in European Union’

I WISH to respond to the article ‘A view from the Chamber’ [Page 21, Telegraph, issue October 20].

I cannot hold my hand up and claim to have read all 108 pages of the SNP’s third paper concerning the ‘Building of a New Scotland’.

I have however read with some interest, the comments made by qualified political journalists, who routinely dismissed sections of the paper as being very vague, long in words, short in detail, unstructured, incoherent, no numbers, no plans beyond a series of broad brush aspirations.

Independence would be like a leap in the dark, without a parachute.

On the EU, Scotland was never a member state, Great Britain was a member state.

Vice-president of the EU Katarina Barley said Scotland would never be fast-tracked into the EU ahead of other aspiring countries, like Macedonia, who made an application in 2004, Montenegro in 2008, Serbia in 2009 and are still on the waiting list.

There are certain steps every candidate country has to go through, often referred to as the Copenhagen Criteria.

All 27 current members would have to approve Scotland’s application for membership.

A couple of items which may prove a little problematic for Scotland’s application.

The First Minister has made it very clear that Scotland would continue to use sterling as its currency initially, then use the Scottish pound as currency, but not the euro. The EU may have a problem with that decision.

Dr Fabain Zuleeg, chief executive of the European Policy Centre in Brussels, confirms that all EU member states, except Denmark, are legally committed to join the euro area, once they have fulfilled the necessary conditions.

Wolfgang Streeck, an economic sociologist, a leading commentator on European capitalism, explains Scotland would either have to adopt the euro, or create their own Scottish pound, as they would be unable to use sterling.

The EU would not look kindly of accepting a country whose currency is controlled by a country not within the EU.

It could hardly be called independence when your entire monetary policy is set by what would be a foreign power.

The Institute of Government warn that it could take up to ten years for Scotland to join the EU.

The EU have a policy where they prefer new member states to have a budget deficit of three per cent or lower.

Currently, Scotland’s deficit is around 12 per cent.

In 2021 The World Bank predicted that a Scottish pound would be worth 20 per cent less.

Nicola Sturgeon has also stated that Scotland should join NATO.

Jens Stolenberg, NATO’s Secretary General, said that an independent Scotland would not automatically become a member of the military alliance. Scotland would have to accept keeping Trident for more than ten years if it wanted to join NATO.

It is a nuclear alliance, current member states are not likely to be very sympathetic to any nation joining the alliance whilst actively undermining its nuclear capacity.