The president of the European Commission has made his clearest declaration to date that if Scotland were to choose independence from the United Kingdom it would have to re-apply for membership of the European Union.

Interviewed for the BBC’s Hard Talk programme, José Manuel Barroso said: “If one part of a country – I am not referring now to any specific one – wants to become an independent state, of course as an independent state it has to apply to the European membership according to the rules – that is obvious.”

He went on to say that: “We are a union of states, so if there is a new state, of course that state has to apply for membership and negotiate the conditions with other member states.”

The BBC interviewer, Sarah Montague, then asked: “So if, and I am using the example of Scotland, and I appreciate you are not talking about specifics, but say a country like Scotland, it, say, chooses independence, it is then like a new state applying to the EU?”

Barroso replied: “For European Union

purposes, from a legal point of view, it is certainly a new state. If a country becomes independent, it is a new state and has to negotiate with the EU.”

Because of the principle of the continuity of the state, he added, the rest of the UK would not have to re-negotiate its terms.

Barroso’s response was immediately leapt on by opponents and supporters of Scottish independence, whose arguments have been given bite by the prospect of a referendum in autumn 2014 on Scottish independence. The Scottish National Party campaigned for the elections to the Scottish parliament in 2011 with a manifesto promise to hold such a referendum on independence, and won a majority. It has since negotiated with David Cameron, the UK’s prime minister, an agreement, concluded in October, to hold a referendum.

The issue of Scotland’s membership of the EU has already emerged as an issue for the campaign that lies ahead. The SNP has declared that an independent Scotland would remain a member of the EU.

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Scottish MEP Struan Stevenson, a Conservative who is part of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, said that Barroso’s remarks were “extremely helpful in putting to rest the SNP argument that an independent Scotland would not have to apply for EU membership”.

Euro or pound?

Where the debate will be particularly acute is over whether Scotland would be obliged to commit itself to joining the eurozone. All new member states are bound by EU treaty to promise to adopt the single currency. But the UK as an existing member state with an opt-out from the euro (like Denmark) is not so obliged. The SNP has said that it would want to keep the pound. John Swinney, the Scottish government’s finance minister, told the House of Lords’ economic affairs committee on Tuesday that the Scottish government had been discussing with the Bank of England plans for a monetary union, after independence.

Stevenson said: “All new EU states have to implement every aspect of EU law including giving a commitment to join the euro. It’s hard to see how Scotland would be any different.”

But Nicola Sturgeon, deputy first minister in the Scottish government and a leading light in the Scottish Nationalist Party, said the negotiations on Scotland’s continued membership of the EU would be going on while Scotland was still part of the UK and therefore part of the EU. If there was a ‘Yes’ vote in the referendum in favour of independence, Scotland would not become independent immediately. The terms of the relationship with the rest of the UK – and with the EU – would be negotiated over the next two years.

Sturgeon said: “We do not agree that an independent Scotland will be in the position of having to reapply for European Union membership.”

She said: “We are now seeking early talks with the European Commission to discuss the specific process of Scotland becoming independent.”

She promised to make a statement to members of the Scottish Parliament today (13 December).

SNP MEP Alyn Smith said: “We have always said there are going to be negotiations and this was going to be a political process, so we are in exactly the strong position we always have been.”

Territorial changes

The economic affairs committee of the United Kingdom’s upper house of parliament, the House of Lords, this week published a letter from José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, in response to questions as part of an inquiry into “the economic implications for the UK of Scottish independence”.

In a letter to the committee, Barroso wrote: “Whilst refraining from comment on possible future scenarios, the European Commission has expressed its views in general in response to several parliamentary questions from members of the European Parliament. In these replies the European Commission has noted that scenarios such as the separation of one part of a member state or the creation of a new state would not be neutral as regards the EU treaties. The European Commission would express its opinion on the legal consequences under EU law upon request from a member state detailing a precise scenario.

“The EU is founded on the treaties, which apply only to the member states who have agreed and ratified them. If part of the territory of a member state would cease to be part of that state because it were to become a new independent state, the treaties would no longer apply to that territory. In other words, a new independent state would, by the fact of its independence, become a third country with respect to the EU and the treaties would no longer apply on its territory.”

John Swinney, the Scottish government’s finance minister, told the House of Lords committee on Tuesday that there was no foundation in EU treaty law for the comment that Barroso had made.

The race for independence

Hypothetical arguments over Scotland’s relationship with the European Union and the eurozone in the event of independence from the rest of the United Kingdom will recur at least until the referendum in the second half of 2014.

The arguments will be closely watched by those campaigning for Catalonia’s independence from Spain. Most separatists in Catalonia, like their counterparts in Scotland, want to stay in the EU. José Manuel García-Margallo, Spain’s foreign minister, told the Spanish senate in September that Scotland would have to take its turn in the queue for EU membership. Since states applying for EU membership need the unanimous support of existing members, there has been much speculation about whether Spain might block an independent Scotland’s attempt to join.

José Manuel Barroso, a former prime minister of Portugal, will be painfully aware of the Spanish situation and of the danger that the European Commission might be accused of making secession easy – whether in the UK, Spain or any other part of the EU.