Scotland vote may lessen likelihood of UK leaving EU

The decision by the Scottish electorate to remain as part of the United Kingdom will be received with relief in Brussels and many European capitals.

The Pandora's Box of Scottish independence remains closed, but it has opened up serious legislative and political questions for the European Union.

The quiet panic that spread through metropolitan England during the last ten days of the campaign was also discernible in Brussels and the European Union as EU officials and member states confronted the very real possibility of Scottish secession.

On the eve of the referendum, Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy intervened directly in the debate, telling the Spanish parliament it would take Scotland eight years to renegotiate membership, and describing the independence movement as "enormously negative".

The spirit of the EU was “to integrate states, not break them up, “ he said, “integration, not division. We need strong countries and unions to face the global challenges worldwide.”

French president Francois Hollande, in a scheduled news conference following a no-confidence vote in the government on Monday, said yesterday that the Scottish issue was decisive not only for Britain, but also for Europe. "After half a century of building Europe, we risk entering a period of deconstruction," he said.

Both leaders reflect fears of secessionism in their own countries.

Rajoy in particular is battling an increasingly serious nationalist movement in Catalonia, while in France, nationalist feeling in Corsica, the Basque Country and Brittany continues to fester.

According to EU officials, the strength of Spanish opposition to Scottish claims for membership is fierce. Spain, along with four EU member states, does not recognise Kosovo as an independent country, despite the region declaring its independence from Serbia.

The Scottish route to EU membership was likely to have taken one of two paths - an application for EU membership under Article 49 of the EU treaty which deals with the accession of would-be member states, or an application under Article 48 which allows existing members to amend the rules, effectively allowing Scotland to renegotiate membership from within.

Either route would need unanimity from all 28 member states, including Spain and Britain.

This morning, the EU has narrowly avoided confronting this hugely complex legal quagmire.

But the Scottish referendum nonetheless opens up profound questions about the EU’s policy on regionalism. The notion that Scotland would have been treated like any other pre-accession state such as Albania or Moldova was highly questionable, considering Scotland has been a member of the European Union for more than 40 years through its relationship with the United Kingdom. The question of if and how the EU - a union of member states - can accommodate regional identities is one that will preoccupy academics and lawyers in the coming years.

Ironically, however, the Scottish independence debate may have given a boost to the European Union at a time when public trust in EU has been ebbing, as evidenced in May’s European elections.

As Fiona Hill and James Shapiro have recently argued in an essay for Foreign Affairs, in many ways the Scottish independence movement would not have been possible without the EU. As countries like Ireland and Denmark know too well, membership of the EU gives small states a viability they might lack on their own. Scotland's position in the European Union poured cold water on the argument that Scotland was too small to go it alone.

As the British political establishment comes to terms today with the commitment towards further federalism and devolution for Scotland, another focus will be the possible British referendum on EU membership which is scheduled to take place within the next three years.

Ironically, Scotland’s position in the EU may have been more secure if they’d voted for independence, given the Conservative Party’s commitment to hold a referendum on EU membership in the next three years.

However, in terms of numbers, the defeat of the ‘yes’ vote makes it more likely that Britain will stay within the Union, given the higher proportion of pro-Europeans in Scotland. While some commentators have predicted a surge in English nationalism following the independence debate which could galvanise euro-scepticism, the experience of the Scottish referendum is likely to make a ‘Brexit’ less likely. The complacency which characterised the British government’s response to the Scottish referendum over the last year is unlikely to be repeated in the event of an EU referendum.

On everything from the substance of the ballot question, to the negotiations with Brussels over the next two years as London seeks to renegotiate its relationship with the European Union, Britain may have just woken up.