The right terms would protect Scotland

Who knows what fiscal policy a newly elected government in an independent Scotland might adopt?

It is disingenuous for Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander to suggest that the fate of countries like Greece, Italy, Ireland and Portugal show the problems the country would face if it decided to go it alone without control of its currency (your report, 9 December).

He cannot possibly know how a new government would adjust its policies on taxation and government expenditure to take account of the disciplines imposed by a common currency.

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The terms of an independence settlement could lay down what freedom the newly independent state would have to change its currency.

They can also determine how the common currency arrangement – the pound – would work in the meantime.

But risks would only arise if the regime north of the Border adopted some of the profligate fiscal practices we have seen in some of those eurozone countries.

They would only arise if there was a lack of honesty and transparency about Scotland’s economic position just before it was granted independence. Much of the eurozone’s problems stem from such such a lack of probity before the system was established in 1999.

I am also at a loss to understand why Mr Alexander feels that independence with the pound as the currency would pose a threat to Edinburgh as a financial centre.

There would only be a threat if depositors and investors felt that autonomy was about to make that sector uncompetitive and bereft of any capacity to change and innovate.

That would only happen if the outcome of negotiations on independence were detrimental to that sector. Mr Alexander could play a more constructive role in ensuring that they are not.

Bob Taylor

Shiel Court

Glenrothes

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, appears to have achieved the considerable feat of both alienating the United Kingdom from every other member of the European Union, and at the same time removing the UK’s one remaining justification for any kind of special relationship with the United States – its ability to act as a bridge into the USA’s largest and most important trading partner.

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He may have managed to appease the Europhobes in his party, at an appalling cost to the country. We are all aware of where appeasement leads. They will be back for more.

Meanwhile, it is fanciful to pretend that the City of London will be “protected” from new European regulation. If the City wants to continue to deal with European institutions it will have to abide by the rules that the rest of Europe puts in place – without having any influence in making them.

As far as the rest of our trade with Europe is concerned, the Single Market is run according to rules decided by qualified majority voting, so there can be no UK veto of future measures which may run counter to UK interests. Manufacturers are already expressing disquiet.

In a few short years, the expanded and integrated Eurozone will be powering ahead. The United States will have developed new links into it, bypassing a United Kingdom which will be fully sovereign but completely isolated – not on the slow track, but in a siding leading to nowhere.

John Brand

European Movement in Scotland

Cumberland Street

Edinburgh

Why is Alex Salmond remaining silent on the Euro crisis? Is this because he campaigned for the last decade to join the Euro and attacked Gordon Brown for not joining, or is it because he does not have an opinion on Eurozone fiscal union, or whether or not the European Central Bank should step in?

It is becoming deeply unacceptable for a man who attacked sterling as “sinking like a stone” in 2009 to now have his own views on joining the Euro hidden away.I guess a simple question would be, in the SNP’s proposed referendum on the Euro, how would the First Minister vote?

That seems a fair enough question or is it anti-Scottish to ask it?

Michelle Smythe

Dalry Road

Edinburgh