Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has rejected reports that EU officials would block a membership application by an independent Scotland if it refused to join the euro.
A report in the Times, based on four separate EU sources, stated that any Scottish application for membership would be dismissed without a pledge to sign up to the euro.
Addressing lawmakers in the Scottish parliament on Thursday (27 October), Sturgeon repeated that EU members have not been forced to join the single currency.
“Not all countries in the European Union will join the euro,” she said, quoting former prime minister David Cameron.
“The reality, according to these several European Union officials, is that a Scotland separated from the UK would be refused entry unless it agrees to join the euro,” Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, challenged Sturgeon.
“Who is lying to the Scottish people – the European Union or Nicola Sturgeon,” he added.
Although joining the EU’s single currency is a standard requirement of new potential members, Sturgeon and her Scottish National Party contend that an independent Scotland would initially keep the British pound “until the time is right to move to a Scottish pound,” a position similar to that of Denmark, Sweden and the UK prior to its decision to leave the bloc, though Sweden is also legally required to eventually join the euro.
Launching a position paper on Scotland’s economy post-independence published earlier this month, Sturgeon insisted that joining the euro was not “the right option for Scotland”. The Scottish National Party (SNP) government has indicated that it would also seek to join the EU’s Schengen free movement area.
Sturgeon has put the prospect of rejoining the EU at the heart of her campaign ahead of a second referendum on Scottish independence from the UK planned for next September. Scots voted by a near two to one margin in favour of remaining in the EU at the 2016 Brexit referendum, allowing Sturgeon to argue that the country was taken out of the bloc against its will.
“The future that the vast majority of people in Scotland want, which is within the European Union, is now only available to Scotland if we become independent,” she said on Thursday.
However, the path towards Scottish EU membership is uncertain, even if voters were to back independence. it is unclear whether a Scottish application for EU membership would be fast-tracked, though having more than 40 years of EU law on its statute would leave little work to align Scotland to the bloc’s legal acquis.
SNP finance minister John Swinney said last week that the expected timetable for rejoining the EU would be 10 years, although EU officials have refused to comment on what is a hypothetical situation.
[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]
Source: euractiv.com
