Constitution Minister Angus Robertson will present the seventh in a series of Scottish Government reports, “Building a New Scotland,” STV reports.
The Scottish Government is set to present an “alternative direction” for the country in plans for European Union membership for an independent Scotland, with Robertson publishing the plans on Friday in the seventh edition of the independence prospectus. He stated that regaining EU membership would come with “challenges,” including a potentially lengthy accession process.
The latest document reveals the Scottish Government will use a “tried and tested” route to membership that goes through the Article 49 process.
This will require Scotland to commit to promoting EU values and fulfil the Copenhagen criteria: democracy, law and human rights must be respected, while future countries must also fulfil the criteria of a ‘functioning’ market economy that can handle competition and market forces in the EU.
Robertson states that Westminster’s “disastrous” decisions on Brexit have led to Scotland’s failure and lower living standards.
He claimed that both Labour and the Tories were happy to impose Brexit on Scotland, which the UK government’s fiscal watchdog believed would reduce national income by 4% compared to EU membership. However, the loss to the economy would be around £100 billion.
“Today the Scottish Government is setting out an alternative direction for Scotland which will detail our shared European values, how we will trade with the rest of the UK and the EU, the immense value to Scotland of being a European Union member state, and the contribution we would make to achieving the EU’s goals.”
A UK Government spokesman stated that people in Scotland wanted both governments to focus on the issues most important to them, such as growing the economy, halving inflation and improving public services.
We want to work constructively with the Scottish Government to tackle our shared challenges because that is what families and businesses in Scotland expect (…) This is not the time to be talking about distracting constitutional change.
