Scotland in the EU
Campaign group Yes For EU held a very successful workshop in Edinburgh to consider various themes about Scotland’s future in the EU. Our intrepid IndyPodcaster team went along to record the event and join in the discussions.
We heard all about Association Agreements for EU candidate countries. Association Agreements give candidate countries access to EU trade area and also to funding and to political, social, cultural and security links. Currently EU has such agreements with Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and the Western Balkan countries. We also heard about the alternative option of joining EFTA and looked the pros and cons of that. And we discussed areas where Scotland is at risk of diverging from the EU and EAA and where we will need to realign or create new arrangements such as borders, currency options, energy policy and the farm payment scheme.
Here are the key points in the broadcast:
- 02:05 Opening remarks and welcome
- 04:49 Heather Anderson on EU or EFTA
- 12:42 Kirsty Hughes on Association Agreements
- 30:23 Discussion question 1
- 30:51 Introduction to Borders topic
- 36:35 Discussion question 2
- 36:51 Introduction to Currency topic
- 39:52 Marla Dukharan on Currency Unions
- 44:53 Discussion question 3
- 45:07 Heather Anderson on farm payments scheme
- 53:13 Discussion question 4
- 53:22 Introduction to EU energy strategy topic
- 59:00 EU renewables strategy by Wind Europe
- 58:10 The future of interconnectors by National Grid
- 60:17 Discussion question 5
- 61:27 Key messages from the workshop
If you’ve watched and discussed any of these topics, please let us know in the comments below. And feel free to feed any thoughts, comments or questions over to Yes For EU.
Guest speakers at Scotland in the EU:
Kirsty Hughes has been a guest on our podcasts several times. This was the most recent one. Click on the image to listen in. Or you can watch the video.
Kirsty was the founder and director of the Scottish Centre on European Relations (SCER) from 2017-2021. She is a leading expert on European politics and public policy. You can browse the archive of her SCER articles.
Heather Anderson It’s been a while since we had Heather on the podcast! But we have plans to sort that very soon. Heather is a former MEP. Unfortunately she’d no sooner got to the EU Parliament than our next door neighbour decided it was taking us out of EU. As a result Heather holds the record for the shortest term as a MEP. She is currently a councillor in Dundee City Council and Convenor on Climate, Environment and Biodiversity. This is her in action at the Scotland in the EU event.
She is a former organic farmer and last time we talked to Heather she was explaining the threats hidden within the Internal Market Bill and the awful implications of Brexit on our parliament, our agriculture, our economy and the very food we eat. Oh and if you thought chlorinated chicken was as bad as it gets, how do you fancy a “white protein” pie from untraceable sources?
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