But he was,
ultimately, expressing little more than a personal view, even if that’s a personal
view shared by many other EU leaders.
There are other countries that have their own problems with independence
movements, which are hoping that the Scots won’t vote for a precedent which
would increase their problems. Whenever
I hear someone saying that Scotland won’t be able to join the EU because ‘Spain
won’t allow it’, I find myself wondering whether the Spanish unionists aren’t
busy telling the Catalans that Cataluña can’t be independent because ‘the UK
won’t allow it’.
The point is,
of course, that no-one actually knows what will happen if the Scots vote yes. It’s completely unprecedented for the EU, and
not only are there no rules to follow, but the member states facing the problem
would, for their own reasons, oppose drawing up any rules in advance. Fear of the unknown works to their advantage. However confident the SNP sound on the one
hand, and the unionists on the other, neither side can really be certain what
will happen.
There are some
things we can make a pretty good guess about though.
·
The
first is that, once the campaign rhetoric is safely stored away and the vote
over, reality will intrude, and all involved will sit down around a table
somewhere and start to discuss what needs to happen.
·
The
second is that the territory of Scotland is already part of the EU, and subject
to the same parts of its treaties as the rest of the UK. This is not a negotiation starting from a
clean sheet as is often the case with an ‘outside’ new applicant, where much of
the time and energy in negotiations concerns the applicability or
non-applicability of the various rules and regulations. The negotiation process will be much simpler,
and the comparison with an external new applicant really isn’t valid.
·
Thirdly,
given that the whole history of the EU has been one of regular expansion, it is
probably reasonable to assume that EU members will prefer to keep Scotland in
than expel it, which is what a refusal would amount to. Whilst Scotland might conceivably go through
a period when its territory is inside the EU but its government is not yet part
of the institutions, I find it hard to believe that the other EU members would
seriously wish to exclude the territory from the EU if negotiations are
incomplete.
Both the UK and
the EU have shown a remarkable capacity for pragmatism when necessary. Where is the evidence that a different
approach would be pursued, and for what reason?
Whilst, as I noted above, the SNP’s confidence cannot be backed up with
absolute certainty, their view seems more likely than not to prevail.
There is one
other big question which Barroso seems, sadly, not even to have been
asked. His views as expressed were
predicated on the assumption that Scottish independence amounts to secession
from the UK, and that the UK retains all the rights of membership. If, however, one views Scottish independence
as more a case of one equal party to a union deciding unilaterally to end that
union, then both parts are ‘new’ countries, and neither ‘new’ country can claim
a monopoly of the rights of the old. At
the very least, there’s an arguable legal case that RUK would need to re-apply
as well.
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