EU expansion on agenda in Brussels, opportunities clear for Scotland

The EU is not a geographic, ethnic or religious club, it is a community of values, and if you’re a state who shares those values then you’re eligible to apply.

Since the last enlargement in 2004 (bringing in Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia), the drawbridge was essentially drawn up and allegations of Fortress Europe were a bit too accurate for comfort.

There was an “enlargement fatigue” as the new member states found their feet and the old member states adjusted to the new arithmetic and perspectives.

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In welcome news, that has decidedly changed and there will be a new EU Commissioner specifically for enlargement, and some serious effort is being put into the next expansion with a greater role for Directorate-General NEAR, the department in the Commission which will make it all happen.

Since the founding of the then European Economic Community in 1957 with six members, the bloc has evolved and expanded to now cover an area from the Algarve to the Arctic Circle.

Crucially from Scotland’s and the UK’s perspective, most of those states have acceded into it at one time or another. An independent Scotland will not be the first state to negotiate entry, and a returning UK will not have to start from scratch.

Enlargement is back on the agenda in Brussels so there is hopefully a better conversation to be had.

There are hundreds of civil servants in Brussels who are deeply skilled in this stuff, and applicant states are given assistance through the negotiations be that with budget, personnel or logistical support.

There are nine applicant states: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye, and Ukraine.

It is safe to say each have a range of issues to resolve, but the objective has now been set and we can expect fresh impetus to talks.

This matters to us because a positive new EU attitude to enlargement in general could positively alter the relations Scotland and the UK have with the EU.

We, sadly, are the only state to have ever left the EU, and where there is little desire to reopen any of that in Brussels, enlargement will be on the agenda more generally so there will be a discussion to be part of.

There is also a well-trodden path to joining for the first time in Scotland’s case, or rejoining, in the UK’s.

The beauty of the EU is that everything is written down. In the EU founding treaty, it is all there in black and white. Article 2 states: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the member states in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”

And Article 3 says: “The Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.”

And in Article 49: “Any European state which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them may apply to become a member of the Union.”

The article then goes on to outline the nuts and bolts of the process. These principles were fleshed out in the Copenhagen Criteria agreed at the Copenhagen Summit in 1993, and form a checklist of the things an aspiring state will be expected to have in place; an independent judiciary, a democratic system of government, that sort of thing.

So the path to membership is clear, if you’re joining from the outside. This matters because there is no clear route to joining from within. As we found out in the 2014 independence referendum, there is nothing in the EU treaties that encourage part of an existing member state to accede to the EU in its own right.

This is not accidental, the late and much-missed Professor Neil MacCormick proposed precisely this when he was an MEP representative on the Constitutional Convention, but the proposals were shot down by all the member states. They don’t want any EU rights for regions or nations within their borders to encourage a route to become a member state.

(Image: PA)

That was a weakness for the Yes campaign in 2014, it is a strength now that the UK is rejoining from outside, same as Scotland will.

The question of how to get our internal Scottish or UK debate to a point where we want to sign the letter of application is where our focus should be. But gone are the days when it could be said there was a guaranteed chilly response in Brussels.

Now there’s a clear well-trodden path and a new attitude to the EU expanding its territory. That’s a good thing for the EU to do to bring stability to the Western Balkans, but it is an advantage for us too.