The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Carmichael plans attack
THE SCOTTISH Secretary will today repeat the claim that the SNP’s plan for smooth European Union membership is flawed.
Alistair Carmichael, a Liberal Democrat in the UK Government, is criticising the timetable and proposed route to full EU statehood in a speech to the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels.
The attack picks up on the latest UK Government analysis paper, published last Friday, which claims that being independent in Europe would leave Scotland up to £3.8 billion worse off.
The Scottish Government wants to make the transition to EU membership within 18 months of a yes vote in the referendum in September.
The negotiations can be hammered out while Scotland remains part of the UK as member state, according to the government’s White Paper on independence, published last November.
But Mr Carmichael will say: “The 18-month timetable the First Minister proposes to place both on himself and the rest of the EU is a negotiating position of extraordinary weakness. “One man’s obsession to deliver independence not just to a specific timetable, but to a specific day of the week, would not just undermine Alex Salmond’s hand in negotiations, but Scotland’s future in Europe.
“Instead of showing he has Scotland’s interests at heart, this obsession with a date rather than the deal reveals just how much of a vanity project this really is.
“Of course the reality is that the terms of membership could not be known until such a time as they were agreed. But the Scottish Government is morally bound to set out in detail what terms of membership they would seek and we are all entitled to assess how likely this is to happen.”