Dear Editor

Scotland's Onward

Yesterday for the New Year another country quietly glided fully into Europe, which, of course, is none too hidden code for the European Union. It adopted the Euro. It entered Schengen. Its population can now travel from Rhodes to Hesteyri and Kirkenes to Sagres check- and exchange free.

The country is Croatia. It has a population of just 3.8 million, two thirds of ours, so it is not as if its size means it can do what we cannot. The impediments lie elsewhere and, moreover, were never agreed by us, in fact quite the contrary. And the impacts become daily more apparent with more to come. Let me give an example.

We have a health problem in the family, a sick relative outwith the UK with long-term care-needs, which we may not be able to fulfil either now or in the very near future. From November this year, 2023, travel to Schengen will require a UK citizen to have a visa and already there is in place a 90 in 180 day limitation. But here is the crux. Whilst Rhodes and Sagres are in Greece and Portugal and therefore EU, Hesteyri is in Iceland and Kirkenes in Norway and non-EU. The bottom line is that, whilst Schengen effectively covers Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican, it also specifically includes Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland. In fact the only current EU member outwith the zone is Ireland and who knows how long that will last.

So what does this mean for Scotland? Top of the list is increasing, un-agreed isolation from all sides, politically and practically south of the border included. However, the solutions lie with us. First, it is increasingly clear that to travel abroad connections from all Scotland’s airports to and onward from one-airport Amsterdam, Paris or Dublin offer more than chaotic, four-airport London. Those alternative routes need to be encouraged. Second, for surface transport Dover-Calais is for all sorts of reasons the bottled of bottle-necks. We need our own connection. We had one once – Rosyth to Zeebrugge, which was reduced to freight only and then in 2018 ended fully – but there is talk of resumption this year. It needs to happen and be committed to by our government in the same way as Oban to Barra or Grutness to Fair Isle.

And there can be more. We have our own currency. London-legal-tender arguments affirm. So let us utilise it finally to our advantage with three possibilities. The first is, pre-empting the endless discussion of post-independence currency, asap simply to replace our pound with the Euro. The second is de facto to do so by making the Euro legal tender within our borders and work in both. And the third, if all else is blocked, is to pass specifically Scottish legislation to allow, indeed encourage, parallel pricing in and acceptance of the Euro in all transactions, in much the same way as is the current case in evolving Northern Ireland and we in fact already do for the English pound. Then we can watch what happens, whilst showing to our Continental European cousins an obvious intent.

Bliadna Mhath Ur

Iain Campbell Whittle

Tigh na Tilleadh

201 Polbain

Achiltibuie

IV26 2YW