EU, NATO link to Scots' vote
If Scotland breaks away from the U.K., it would have to reapply to join both security alliances.
BRUSSELS - If Scottish voters this week say Yes to independence, not only will they tear up the map of Great Britain, but they'll also shake the twin pillars of Western Europe's postwar prosperity and security - the European Union and the U.S.-led NATO defense alliance.
In breaking away from the rest of the United Kingdom, Scotland would automatically find itself outside both the EU and NATO, and would have to reapply to join both, officials from those Brussels-based organizations have stressed.
For the EU especially, Scottish reentry could be a long and arduous process, with other countries dead set against letting the Scots retain the privileges awarded Britain: the so-called opt-outs from being required to use the euro single currency and to join the multination Schengen zone, where internal border controls have been scrapped.
For NATO's admirals and generals, the current Scottish government's insistence on a sovereign Scotland becoming free of nuclear weapons would pose enormous strategic and operational headaches, even if a transitional grace period were agreed on. A new home port would have to be found for the Royal Navy's four Trident missile-carrying submarines and their thermonuclear warheads, based on the Clyde.
In what might be read as a warning to the Scots, Britain's Ministry of Defense has said a nuclear-free stance could constitute a "significant" hurdle to Scotland's being allowed back into NATO.
Until Scotland rejoined the alliance, to which it's belonged with the rest of Britain for 65 years, new arrangements would also need to be found to patrol vital shipping routes in the North Atlantic and North Sea.
Loss of Scotland would also weaken the influence of Britain inside the 28-nation European Union. For the moment, the British, the Germans, and the French constitute the Big Three. Without Scotland's population, Britain would drop to No. 4, behind Italy.
Prime Minister David Cameron made a final plea ahead of Thursday's vote, urging Scots to avoid an irreversible breakup, Bloomberg News reported. "It would not be a trial separation. It would be a painful divorce," Cameron said.