Ooohh, that's a tough one.
From The Times, Scotland edition, October 27:
Brussels sources tell The Times currency pledge is essential before membership considered
Nicola Sturgeon’s plans for an independent Scotland to join the EU have been dealt a blow after senior figures in Brussels insisted the SNP must commit to joining the euro before membership can be considered.
Four separate EU sources have told The Times that any Scottish application for membership would be given short shrift without a pledge to sign up to the single currency.
The intervention damages Sturgeon’s currency plans to use sterling in the years after independence before switching to a separate Scottish pound.
Eyebrows were raised in Brussels after the first minister launched her economic paper last Monday in which she committed to rejoining the EU without binding to the euro insisting it was not “the right option for Scotland”.
The first minister offered no timetable for re-entry but her deputy John Swinney later said he believed Scotland would become an EU country using its own currency within a decade.
The EU’s membership terms are very clear: “All EU member states, except Denmark, are required to adopt the euro and join the euro area.” Speaking to The Times, a senior source was equally unambiguous: “No euro, no membership.”
EU member states are understood to have become more ardently opposed to new applicants who reject the single currency since the 2016 Brexit vote. Seven of the 13 countries that have joined the EU since 2004 have switched to the euro, most recently Lithuania on January 1, 2015. Croatia will join it next year.
Rejoining the EU is not universally popular within the SNP with some activists concerned that Scotland gains fiscal levers from London only to hand over control to Brussels. A paper on EU membership will be published as part of the Scottish government’s series of policy documents on independence....
....MUCH MORE
