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Successor states that set an example for an independent Scotland Successor states that set an example for an independent Scotland
(7 months later)
You report that if Scotland had to renegotiate its EU and UN membership from scratch it could take years to complete (Legal advice aims to put brakes on Salmond, 11 February). Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were admitted to the UN before Boris Yeltsin declared in December 1991 that the Russian Federation was continuing the USSR membership in the UN – and it only took until March 1992 before eight other countries of the new federation were admitted to the UN. After the Czech/Slovakian divorce in January 1993, neither country claimed to be the sole successor state to Czechoslovakia, but it took less than three weeks before the Czech and Slovak republics were admitted to the UN as new and separate states.
TP Leary
Dunchurch, Warwickshire		You report that if Scotland had to renegotiate its EU and UN membership from scratch it could take years to complete (Legal advice aims to put brakes on Salmond, 11 February). Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were admitted to the UN before Boris Yeltsin declared in December 1991 that the Russian Federation was continuing the USSR membership in the UN – and it only took until March 1992 before eight other countries of the new federation were admitted to the UN. After the Czech/Slovakian divorce in January 1993, neither country claimed to be the sole successor state to Czechoslovakia, but it took less than three weeks before the Czech and Slovak republics were admitted to the UN as new and separate states.
TP Leary
Dunchurch, Warwickshire
• David Cameron's legal advice and José Manuel Barroso's opinions are fear-mongering and purely self-serving. Let's ask a simple question: if Belgium were finally to break up, as it sometimes threatens to do, would Brussels be thrown out of the EU, or Flanders, or Wallonia? Almost certainly none of them, and neither will Scotland, no matter how much negotiation it might take.
Pól Ó Dochartaigh
Aldergrove, Co Antrim		• David Cameron's legal advice and José Manuel Barroso's opinions are fear-mongering and purely self-serving. Let's ask a simple question: if Belgium were finally to break up, as it sometimes threatens to do, would Brussels be thrown out of the EU, or Flanders, or Wallonia? Almost certainly none of them, and neither will Scotland, no matter how much negotiation it might take.
Pól Ó Dochartaigh
Aldergrove, Co Antrim
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