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Comment by sleavey | Hacker News Reader

I completely disagree. The EU remained silent during the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 because they didn't want to be seen to be publicly undermining the UK government, but since relations have soured they've been pretty open to say that Scotland would be welcomed back into the EU and that it already meets the requirements.

Not to say that Scotland rejoining the EU would be a massive moral victory for the EU over England.

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So you disagree that the EU doesn't want Catalonia to be independent. Just like with Scotland they are not encouraging it.

Or they are just biding their time?

Disagree with your final point.

The last thing the EU wants is disruption - ever. They want clear, stable operations backed by huge bureaucracy.

They'll be glad Brexit is over so they can just get on with BAU. The ordeal of an independent Scotland forming and applying to join would be a huge disruption.

The EU may be a bureaucracy, but it isn’t a huge one. Its budget is too small for that.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/eu-budget/transparency/fa...:

“At some €148 billion (2019 figure), the EU budget is in fact smaller than the budgets of Austria or Belgium.

This was a tiny fraction (2%) of the combined national budgets of all EU countries (€7,524 billion) in 2019.”

The EU bureaucracy is at a higher level, like the Euro Working Group made up of financial ministers from EU countries.

There is a LOT of red tape involved in getting stuff done.

> it already meets the requirement

I wonder whether that is actually true, isn't the state budget coming in significant part from the UK? I wonder how would that be stacked against Maastricht treaty parameters

There's also the pound which Scotland uses.

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