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Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

I don't see why not. The whole leaving the EU thing is a reasonable cause for independence. In general I like smaller units of government too, and it's not as if they can't cooperate with the UK in areas where they agree.

I do have a horse in this race as I have Scottish family who'd have more choices with an EU passport.

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You don't have to join Schengen border cooperation.

All EU accession states are legally bound to join Schengen, with the exception of Ireland, which during the negotiations for the Treaty of Amsterdam received (along with the UK) an opt-out. No other nations have this opt-out.

Yet not all nations are in Schengen. If Scotland were allowed to join the EU (despite Spain's veto) I have no doubt there would be an acceptance that it could remain in the CTA with Ireland and the rest of UK

I'd have the opposite view. It seems unlikely that the bloc will ever provide opt-outs going forward given the difficulties they've caused to date.

Unlike Denmark, Sweden doesn't have an optout for the Euro, yet hasn't joined.

They used a loophole: to adopt Euro you need to be in ERM-II for a while as a pre-requisite, and Sweden found out that there is no rule imposing a timeframe for it to join ERM-II so it is deliberately not joining. IMO this is complying with the letter of the agreement it has with the EU but not the spirit.

As far as I understand, the EU closed this loophole for new members but it is turning a blind eye for Sweden.

It is fascinating to me that in practice there is this reversal of roles: Sweden is supposed to adopt the Euro and yet has a free-floating currency, and Denmark that has an opt-out deliberately chose to be in ERM-II and has a currency that is pegged to the Euro.

Scotland wouldn't meet the criteria to join the EU - it's far too poor and small by itself. Exiting the UK would just isolate them more.

Ireland has a population of 5 million, Scotland 5.5 million.

That isnt correct, perhaps "poor" might be a problem depending on what dept Scotland would have after independence, but definetly not small.

Joining criteria are (https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/enlargement-p...):

* stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities;

* a functioning market economy and the capacity to cope with competition and market forces in the EU;

* the ability to take on and implement effectively the obligations of membership, including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union.

> stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities;

How could it be judged that institutions are stable immediately after independence? There'd be a ton of new ones that would need to be set up.

They've had those things as the country of Scotland under the UK, so I'd assume you could argue that they qualify with that.

How? There is a well established separate court system in Scotland so I think that part would be fine. But pretty much every other part of government would have to be built from scratch. A foreign office, a home office, immigration, passport office, etc. etc. etc.

Most of these are institutions are based physically in rUK so it’s not like they can be “split”

Sure, they'd have to build up new offices and staff them with people. But they have a parliament and they have elections, right?

There are 9 EU countries that have less people than Scotland.

The formal criteria are that a country is a stable market democracy, other than that accession is really a political matter (see Ukraine and Turkey). Clearly there would be a groundswell of support for incorporating a Scotland fleeing from Brexitland. It would be a coup for the EU.

Spain won't like a "breakaway province" joining the EU - they hate self determination for places like Catalonia and Gibraltar.

Sure, but that is politics. Given the overwhelming view of the EU will be to admit Scotland, there would likely be a quid pro quo. Spain would drive its bargaining position to extract concessions from the rest of the union in exchange for its consent.

I expect some European countries like Spain to firmly oppose them joining the European Union, to send a message to inner regions that may also want independence.

This idea that Scotland is going to vote for independence from the UK and straight into Europe is far fetched.

In 2021, Scotland's GDP per capita was estimated[0] to be about £30,000, or around €35,000 euros. This is hardly poor--even if economic output fell by half on independence, Scotland would still have a higher nominal GDP per capita than many EU members (such as Poland, Romania, and the Baltic States)[1]. I don't know how much independence would affect the economy, but a 50% decrease seems quite harsh.

Its population of around 5 million is comparable to other small EU member states such as Ireland, Slovakia, Finland, and Croatia[2].

[0] - https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publ...

[1] - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_08_10/def...

[2] - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/tps00001/defa...

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