Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Attorney-General – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 12 February 2013.
Dominic Grieve
The Attorney-General
11:30,
12 February 2013
I have not discussed with the European Commission the legal status of Scotland’s membership of the EU. The United Kingdom Government’s position is that the most likely outcome is that Scotland would have to join the EU as a new member state. That position has been backed up by comments from the President of the European Commission and by the President of the European Council.
The European Commission is the politically independent institution that represents and upholds the interests of the EU as a whole. It is the driving force within the EU’s institutional system: it proposes legislation, policies and programmes of action and it is responsible for implementing the decisions of Parliament and the Council.
Like the Parliament and Council, the European Commission was set up in the 1950s under the EU’s founding treaties.