Alex Salmond has hit mainland Europe and demanded that Scotland "leads the UK's fishing talks".
Pun alert:
Is Alex throwing a line in with the EU?
Does he really want to net the prestigious post of "Scottish Fishing Ambassador"?
Is he wanting to reel in a few more euros?
Or is he trawling for compliments?
Perhaps he's just codding around?
Enough!!
Unfortunately, for Alex, there is an inconvenient fact that he may have forgotten:
The UK coastline is shared between Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland - all with major fishing industries
Rhona Brankin
Labour
Mr Salmond, may be slippier than an eel (sorry, last one!), but he really is getting ideas above his station; hopefully, the European Union reminded him that Scotland is not yet an independent *nation* and he's not a real prime-minister, entitled to make such arrogant demands.
2 comments:
Point well made O'Neill, and you may be bang on about Salmond, but it's worth noting that very many European regions have delegations and the like to the EU (Bavaria, for example, have very salubrious digs just behind the European Parliament building).
And there's the Committee of the Regions which, under the Treaties, acts as a recognised conduit for sub-national regions to communicate with the EU institutions.
It's not necessarily a diminution of national state sovereignty for a region to have its own people on the spot in Brussels. It's just that we in this part of the world are still getting used to sovereignty being shared rather than fought over.
It's just that we in this part of the world are still getting used to sovereignty being shared rather than fought over.
I was aware of the Committee of the Regions and the fact that Bavaria, Catalunia etc do deal independently of their nation states in communicating with the EU HQ. However, Salmond's attempt goes beyond this; what he's saying in effect would be the same as Catalunia demanding to represent all of Spanish interests in, for example,tourism simply because it is the region with the most hotels!!
Most unfair!
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