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Sturgeon seeks urgent Brussels talks to protect Scotland's EU membership Sturgeon to lobby EU members to support Scotland's bid to remain
(35 minutes later)
Nicola Sturgeon has said the Scottish government will seek to enter into “immediate discussions” with Brussels to “protect Scotland’s place in the EU” in the wake of the Brexit vote. Nicola Sturgeon is to directly lobby European Union member states for support in ensuring that Scotland can remain part of the EU, after Scots voted emphatically against Brexit on Thursday.
Speaking after a meeting of the Scottish cabinet at Bute House, the first minister said she would set up a panel of experts to advise her on how the nation can manage its relationship with the European Union in the future. The first minister has disclosed that she is to invite all EU diplomats based in Scotland to a summit at her official residence in Edinburgh within the next two weeks, in a bid to sidestep the UK government.
She also reiterated that the necessary legislation would be put in place for a second Scottish independence referendum, following the EU referendum result which saw Scotland vote to stay in by 62% while the UK as a whole voted to leave. After Scotland voted 62% to 38% to stay in the EU, she plans to begin immediate discussions with the European commission to “protect Scotland’s relationship with the EU and our place in the single market”.
Holding a second referendum is “on the table” she added. The first minister was speaking after an emergency cabinet meeting on Saturday morning. She added that she is to establish an advisory body of financial, legal and diplomatic experts who can advise her government on its options for retaining EU membership after Thursday’s UK-wide vote, by 52% to 48%, to leave the EU.
More details soon... “Cabinet agreed we would begin immediate discussions with the EU institutions and other member states to explore all the possible options to protect Scotland’s place in the EU.”
She said the cabinet had endorsed her decision on Friday to begin immediate preparations for a second Scottish independence referendum. Her officials refused to confirm indications that a new bill would be in her programme for government in September.
In a statement outside her Bute House residence in Edinburgh, Sturgeon did not repeat her view on Friday that a new vote was highly likely, but said that “a second independence referendum is clearly an option that requires to be on the table and it is very much on the table.
“And to ensure that option is a deliverable one in the required timetable, steps will be taken to ensure that the necessary legislation is in place. Cabinet this morning formally agreed to that work.”
She added: “We are determined to act decisively but in a way which builds unity across Scotland about the way forward.” That would include asking for members of pro-UK figures and non-nationalists in the advisory panel.
There is a large diplomatic corps in Edinburgh, including consuls general from several of the major world powers and from other EU member states. She said her summit with diplomats would be to ask their help in reassuring their nationals now living in Scotland that they were welcomed and cherished.
“People from other EU countries who have done us the honour of choosing Scotland as their home are welcome here. I want to make sure that is a message we get across strongly,” she added.
A European commission spokeswoman declined to comment on Nicola Sturgeon’s remarks, or whether EU officials would enter into talks with the Scottish government. “If there is a request [for talks], I am sure there will be a response, but I cannot offer any comments on things that have not happened,” she said. “For the time being the UK is still a member of the EU and a dialogue has not yet started.”
The European commission head, Jean-Claude Juncker, was scheduled to speak with the Scottish first minister on Friday. But when the question of Scottish independence was on the table two years ago, EU officials had insisted that were it an independent country, Scotland would have to apply to join the EU. Under the EU treaty article 49, any democratic European country can apply to join the EU.
But some experts think it is possible that the rest of the EU may agree to put Scotland on a separate fast-track process, rather than bracketing it with EU aspirants such as Albania and Turkey.
Steve Peers, professor of law at the University of Essex, has written: “It may be that the remaining EU could have more political will to welcome Scotland as an EU member than it might have had in 2014, in the interests of stemming any perception that the EU is falling apart.”