The European Union has very kindly decided to sort out the constitutional crisis thown up by the Devolution Experiment.
Now, everyone, pay attention:
Wales, Northern Ireland, western England and western Scotland will now form part of the "Atlantic" region, along with some coastal areas of Ireland, Spain, France and Portugal.
Eastern Scotland and England, from the Thames up, however will be in the “North Sea region”, which includes parts of Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Sweden.
Which just leaves south-eastern England which (obviously) is part of the TransManche (cross-Channel) region, along with much of northern France.
For Northern Irish Unionists this plan leaves us the enticing prospect of bringing at least some of our southern brothers back into the fold, along with the added bonus of some nice beaches on the Algarve.
More seriously, this ties in with a point I made in earlier in the month; the European Union is increasingly dividing out funding and benefits on a regional as opposed to national basis. That being the case, contrary to the SNP’s contant pronouncements, it would very little real difference on the ground whether “eastern” and “western” Scotland remain part of the United Kingdom or an independent Scottish state.
Of course, that’s presuming an independent Scotland would be allowed to remain part of the European Union in the first place....
2 comments:
Perhaps. But as Iain MacWhirter pointed out the other day in the Sunday Herald it would be a bit odd for the EU as whole to veto Scottish membership whilst as a whole (the majority of countries supported it) backing a violent break away of Kosovo - or Kosova as it should be called now.
As I think I mentioned before, if several EU states have problems with sepratist states being members then maybe they should of thought about it when they allowed Slovenia and the Baltic States in.
I think the difference with the entry of new states into the EU is that any one country can veto a new entrant.
But I'll concede that second-guessing the EU on matters like this is a mugs game.
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