On the 75h anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, we were in Edinburgh to celebrate Europe Day 2025 at the event Scotland in the EU: good for Scotland, good for Europe, co-organised by our friends at Yes for EU and us.
The event was the culmination of a journey started with the trip to Brussels of our joint delegation a month before, where we met several MEPs who are sympathetic towards Scotland’s desire to rejoin the EU. We were extremely happy to be able to show in this occasion some of the video messages recorded by the MEPs. In the video below, the salute from Terry Reintke, MEP, before the introduction from Andrea Pisauro, for our campaign.
Happy Europe day everyone!
It’s fantastic to speak after this energetic salute from one of the most brilliant MEPs in Brussels.
Terry Reitnke was the Green candidate for the European Commission Presidency in the last European elections, she is a trailblazer and a good friend of Scotland and of our campaign, so if she or some from her team are listening to us live you may all want to join me in wishing her a very happy birthday.
Friends, today is an important day for Europe.
75 years ago, the French foreign minister Robert Schuman put forward a bold idea.
Unite Europe by pooling coal and steel production to make war ‘unthinkable” and “materially impossible’.
He used these words in a declaration timed for the 5th anniversary of the end of the war, in 1950.
Political and economic cooperation to overcome the tragedies of the war and of the nazifascist dictatorships that started it.
That was the beginning of the journey that brought European countries together in freedom and democracy within the European Union.
This is why Europeans all across Europe are celebrating today a day of unity, peace and solidarity.
How sad that the UK has decided to leave that journey.
How sad that Europe day is not celebrated anymore in England.
How beautiful that we celebrate it in Scotland, here in Edinburgh tonight and in many other cities!
Friends, we should all be grateful that war in the EU has really become unthinkable and materially impossible and I ask you to think how much of a gift this was.
At the same time our thoughts today as Europeans must also go to all other countries outside the EU where war keeps raging.
In Gaza, where the shameful support of the UK government to the crimes against humanity of Netanyahu’s army tragically continues.
in Ukraine where Ukrainians keep suffering Putin’s criminal invasion and brutal aggression.
in Yemen and in many other countries now even between India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers.
May peace be with all of you, were the first words said yesterday by the new Pope Leo in my home town Rome.
May peace be with all of you, let’s all do our bit to defend a future of peace for Europe and the world.
Now, picking an American progressive pope was perhaps the way the Catholic church chose to deal with Trump and we will see how that will play out.
What we already know my friends, is how badly is playing out Labour’s way to deal with Trump. Starmer keeps trying to be Trump’s special pal and Trump keeps doing as he is pleased.
Trade experts tell us how not very meaningful was yesterday’s announcement that brought some tariffs back to where they were, while Trump keeps pushing for a trade deal which would be disastrous for most of us in the UK.
No wonder Starmer’s Labour is sinking in the polls.
I really want everyone to think how dangerous his failure is, boosting Farage’s chance to become the next UK Prime Minister and turn the UK in a Trump’s vassal state.
But tonight, we are here to discuss something else, something important and something beautiful.
We will show you a number of irrefutable pieces of evidence that members of the European Parliament from several different countries would really be happy if an independent Scotland were to rejoin the EU.
They were happy to state publicly that Scotland will always be welcome, that rejoining would be a smooth process conducted with goodwill and that they very much agree with us that it would be both good for Scotland and good for Europe.
Some of these MEPs had also previously signed our commitment to welcome any application from Scotland, a commitment that we put to them during the last EU elections in our Speak Up for Scotland campaign and I take a chance to thank our brilliant activist Sarah De Sanctis who coordinated that effort and is probably watching us live.
Their sentiment was echoing that of the almost 200 European intellectuals that signed our open letter in 2021. Among them, some of the most important democracy and constitutional scholars in Europe and also some amazing novelists like Elena Ferrante, Philip Pullman Ian McEwan and Val McDermid, and I salute them all too, should they be following.
Since then 16K citizens have joined them while our campaign has continued to express our European solidarity with Scotland as we did after the Supreme Court Judgement in 2022.
You might have seen some pictures of our activists gathering to read our statement of solidarity in different languages in Rome, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin and many other cities.
I cannot thank them all but let me at least thank Jane McKinnon and Nina Jetter who were part of our delegation in Brussels and co-coordinate the campaign with me.
We were very happy to work with Yes for EU and we came back from Brussels with a very long to do list.
As part of it in the next few years we will keep reminding Europe that
Brexit must not be Scotland’s destiny.
Scotland matters, both to resist Trump and strengthen democracy in Europe.
Crucially we will do it within the European institutions in Brussels, where we plan to go every year until the new independence referendum finally happens.
Our aim, which from tonight becomes also your aim, is to let as many Scots as possible know that Europeans would love to welcome Scotland back in the EU as an independent country, if the Scottish people so desire.
So without further ado join us in our journey to the European Parliament to see with your own eyes what the MEPs we have met have got to say!