27 March 2017

POLITICO: Spain to Scotland: You’re not special

As the governments in London and Edinburgh prepare their battle plans ahead of a potential second Scottish independence referendum, both are paying careful attention to what happens in Madrid. Spain has long been the most vocal opponent within the EU to any kind of separate deal for an independent Scotland because of fears that allowing such an arrangement would encourage Catalonia’s bid for independence from Spain. [...]

For the SNP, there is no getting away from it: Any hope in Holyrood that Spain might acquiesce to an independent Scotland remaining in the EU in the U.K.’s place despite Brexit is a non-starter.

But Spain’s stance is not as hard-line as the U.K. prime minister’s closest advisers insist. One senior government official familiar with May’s thinking said there was “no way on earth” Spain would ever accept an independent Scotland into the EU.

According to senior figures in the Madrid government, Spain is not saying it will indefinitely block an independent Scotland rejoining the EU but neither has it agreed this might be possible.

The conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy simply insists that, were it to become independent, Scotland must apply to join like everybody else. Any decision on whether to veto a Scottish application to join the EU as an independent country will be taken at a later date.

Pandora’s Box

In the upcoming Brexit negotiations, Spain is advocating a hard EU line against Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party to stop their separatist cause becoming a blueprint for Catalan pro-independence forces.

Rajoy considers the issue a priority in the Brexit negotiations, and his goal, which is backed by the main opposition Socialists, is to avoid any formula by which Scotland can remain in the European Union — either as part of the U.K. or as an independent country.

“Spain supports the territorial integrity of the U.K. and doesn’t encourage secessions or divisions in any of the member states,” Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said last week after Sturgeon announced her intention to hold a new referendum on independence from the U.K. “We prefer that things continue the way they are.”

Scotland, Dastis said, “would have to join the queue, meet the requirements, go through the well-known negotiations and the outcome will be whatever those negotiations produce.”

The government in the northeastern region of Catalonia is controlled by pro-independence forces, who have committed to organizing a referendum on secession from Spain before October — a vote that Madrid and the country’s courts consider illegal.

For Scotland to leave the U.K. but remain within the EU is exactly the kind of precedent Madrid wants to avoid as it could encourage Catalan separatists, who are paying equally close attention to the Scottish case and who have claimed that Catalonia may be able to leave Spain without leaving the EU. [...]

Full article on POLITICO

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