Senior diplomat says EU and UN would embrace independent Scotland

21/02/2013

Mark Malloch BrownDunfermline MSP Bill Walker has welcomed a former UN Deputy Secretary-General’s comments that the EU would be “anxious to embrace” an independent Scotland and that some reports on Scotland’s future UN membership have tried to “make a mountain out of a molehill for political reasons”.

Mark Malloch-Brown, who was also a Foreign Minister in Gordon Brown’s Labour government, told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland program:

“I don’t think they (the EU) would have any particular reason to want to make things tricky for Scotland. I think the fact that Scotland would likely remain very pro-European would mean they’d be anxious to embrace Scotland and bring it in.

“So if they were going to make the issue embarrassing for anybody it’s more likely they’d make it embarrassing for London with whom they have bigger problems.” Read more of this post

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S4M-05425: EU Co-equal Successor States

22/01/2013

That the Parliament welcomes the opinion of Professor David Scheffer, the Harvard and Oxford-educated American international lawyer and academic, that both Scotland and the rest of the UK will become “co-equal successor states” to the EU in the event of Scotland regaining independence; considers the contributions of such leading authorities as Professor Scheffer, whose posts have included Special Advisor to Madeleine Albright at the United Nations, first US Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues under Bill Clinton’s administration and lecturer at North Western University School of Law, to be extremely valuable in helping the Scottish electorate reach an informed decision in the run-up to the independence referendum; hopes that the professor’s contribution will both reassure and be welcomed by those who are concerned about whether or not Scotland would have to reapply to join the EU after independence, and considers the main threat to Scotland’s continuing membership of the EU to come from Westminster, where factions of MPs on both the Conservative and Labour benches are reported to be pressing their leaders for an in-out EU referendum for the UK.

Supported by: Richard Lyle, Bill Kidd, Kenneth Gibson, John Mason, David Torrance, Gil Paterson, Colin Beattie, Jim Eadie, Colin Keir, Christine Grahame, Dave Thompson, Stuart McMillan, Willie Coffey, Mike MacKenzie, John Finnie, Nigel Don, Chic Brodie

Date Lodged: 21/01/13

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Leading international lawyer argues Scotland and rUK will be “co-equal successor states” to EU

21/01/2013

EUDunfermline MSP Bill Walker has welcomed comments from a top-level international lawyer and academic that post-independence Scotland will be a “co-equal successor” to the EU along with the rest of the UK (rUK).

Professor David Scheffer – formerly Special Advisor to Madeleine Albright at the United Nations and first US Ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues under the Clinton administration, and currently lecturing at North Western University School of Law – asserted:

“My argument quite frankly is that we have two co-equal successor states.

“The smart move is to say, ‘look, if it happens – namely if the referendum actually, you know, achieves a “Yes” vote for independence – there will be a path developed for the continued participation of the Scottish people and thus of the new nation of Scotland or the restored nation of Scotland in the European Union”. Read more of this post

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