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| EU says independent Scotland would have to join queue to apply for membership | EU says independent Scotland would have to join queue to apply for membership |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The EU has said an independent Scotland would have to join a queue of nations seeking membership of the bloc, after Nicola Sturgeon announced plans for a second independence referendum. | The EU has said an independent Scotland would have to join a queue of nations seeking membership of the bloc, after Nicola Sturgeon announced plans for a second independence referendum. |
| Wading into the debate on the Scottish Government’s plans for a second vote, a spokesman for the European Commission said Scotland would not be granted automatic access to the EU. | |
| At a briefing in Brussels, Margaritis Schinas said: "The commission does not comment on issues that pertain to the internal legal and constitutional order of our member states." | |
| But he added: "The Barroso doctrine, would that apply? Yes that would apply, obviously." | |
| Former commission president Jose Manuel Barroso set out the legal view that if one part of an EU country became an independent state it would have to apply for EU membership. | |
| In a letter sent in 2012, Mr Barroso spelled out EC doctrine that “the separation of one part of a Member State or the creation of a new state would not be neutral as regards the EU Treaties”. | |
| He continued: “A new independent state would, by the fact of its independence, become a third country with respect to the EU and the Treaties would no longer apply on its territory.” | |
| Were Scotland to hold a second independence vote and then back splitting from the UK, the Government in Holyrood would have to apply for EU membership under Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union. | |
| Several countries have expressed an interest in joining the EU, with Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina considered official candidate countries. | |
| Jacqueline Minor, who until earlier this month was the European Commission’s official representative in the UK, previously warned that an independent Scotland would join a “list” of countries seeking membership. | |
| However, she added that Scotland’s path may prove easier than other countries going through the application process as Scottish laws already comply with those required by the EU. | |
| “It would presumably not be too difficult for Scotland compared to, say, Montenegro,” she said. | |
| More follows... |