Between Two Unions: Europeanisation and Scottish Devolution by Paolo Dardanelli

Author:Paolo Dardanelli [Dardanelli, Paolo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Scotland, Great Britain, Europe, Comparative Politics, Political Science, American Government, History, General
ISBN: 9781847796233
Google: E2S5DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 9246016
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2006-03-17T00:00:00+00:00

Perception and strategic use of the EU

Since the mid-1980s, Labour’s perception of the EU underwent a profound transformation which moved the party from a commitment to withdrawal to strong support for membership and, to a lesser extent, for further integration. By the mid-1990s the Labour party was much more pro-EU than ever before and also more pro-EU than the Conservatives. It had developed a positive attitude to economic integration in general and to the latter’s impact on Scotland in particular. The ideological revision within Labour meant that economic integration no longer conflicted with the party’s economic policies while evidence accumulated that Scotland was thriving within the single market. The change in perception had been made easier by the fact that the EU started to develop social and regional policies whose objectives had always been at the heart of the party’s principles and beliefs while these were being phased out or undermined in the Conservative-ruled UK. More generally, the Labour party in Scotland thus came to see the EU as a progressive, multi-level political system which was a necessary response to the challenges of the late twentieth century such as economic globalisation, security threats and environmental problems. This progressive system was favourably contrasted with a constitutionally archaic and socially regressive Conservative-ruled UK state. Like the SNP, the Labour party was thus also seeing the EU as a ‘positive alternative’ to the UK and, moreover, as a facilitator of the demand for devolution.24

On this changed perception of the European Union, the Labour party built a European dimension to its devolution policy with the objective of counteracting the competitive challenge represented by the SNP’s decision to fully exploit the EU to boost support for independence. The focus of the party’s policy was to demonstrate that devolution was the best constitutional option for Scotland not only within the UK but within the wider EU as well. This was directed at countering the SNP’s claim that only ‘independence in Europe’ would maximise Scotland’s influence at the Union level. The argument was fully spelt out in the party’s submission to the Scottish Constitutional Convention on the European dimension to devolution.25 Authored by David Martin, MEP for the Lothians and de facto leader of Labour Scottish MEPs, the document stressed the crucial importance of the European dimension for Scotland and the vital need to maximise the representation of its interests in ‘Brussels’.26 In order to achieve this objective it proposed the establishment of a Scottish European office in Brussels and it advocated for a post-devolution Scotland the same type of representation enjoyed by the German regions, described as ‘the maximum possible representation within the EC for a non-member state’.27 These proposals were placed in a framework of strong support for a ‘Europe of the Regions’ scenario that went as far as supporting ‘the establishment of a second elected chamber of the Regions which would eventually replace the Council of Ministers’.28 Martin’s proposals became the official policy of the Scottish Labour party even though his radicalism in favour

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