Jose Manuel Barroso: “Extremely difficult, if not impossible” for a separate Scotland to join the EU

Jose Manuel Barroso has said before that Scotland would have to apply separately to join the EU if it became independent. But his remarks today on the Andrew Marr Show were far more pessimistic about the prospects of that application being successful. After the three main Westminster parties blew a hole in the reassuring argument that Alex Salmond has been making so far that Scotland could keep the pound, Barroso effectively reminded Scots this morning that a ‘Yes’ vote won’t just mean ‘Yes’ to independence, it will mean ‘Yes’ to leaving the EU too. He said:

‘First of all, I don’t want now to go into hypothetical questions. What I can say is the following: we respect the democratic process going on; it’s for the Scottish people and for the British citizens to decide about that, that future of Scotland. What you said is perfectly right – in case there is a new country, a new state coming out of a current member state, it will have to apply and – this is very important – the application and the accession to the European Union would have to be approved by all the other member states.