NICOLA Sturgeon will tomorrow set off for Brussels in her bid to keep Scotland inside the EU.
The First Minister has secured a meeting with the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, as she embarks on an unprecedented diplomatic initiative for the head of a devolved UK administration.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, will not meet with the SNP leader as he is "tied up" with council business and will then be setting off for Slovakia. However, the Scottish Government expects to arrange a summit with Mr Junker in the coming weeks.
Ms Sturgeon has acted quickly in her bid to secure support from EU institutions and other member states following last week's referendum, which saw Scotland vote overwhelmingly to remain in the bloc but the UK wide result in favour of leaving.
Her spokesman confirmed that Ms Sturgeon remains convinced that another independence referendum is "highly likely", ahead of a statement to the Scottish Parliament this afternoon. It is expected that she will unveil the make-up of an expert panel, which is being set up to provide advice on ways in which the country can hold on to its EU status, in her speech to MSPs.
On her trip she is also expected to secure meetings with prominent members of European parliamentary groups, including former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, who leads the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in Brussels.
The bi-lateral talks are taking place without any representation of the UK Government. It is customary for the Foreign Office to have involvement in major foreign visits involving heads of devolved administrations.
Ms Sturgeon's spokesman, speaking following a meeting the cabinet, said: "This is all about finding what solutions might be available in completely unchartered territory... we are intent on finding the best possible outcome for Scotland to retain her EU status in line with the democratically expressed wish of the people in Scotland.
"What that may or may not entail is the matter for discussion, the mechanism that might be available. No-one has ever been in this situation before, no country has ever essentially booted itself out of the EU before."
News of the trip emerged shortly after SNP MEP Alyn Smith received a rare standing ovation on the floor of the European Parliament after he urged fellow members to stand by Scotland in its quest to retain EU membership.
He said: "I represent Scotland within this house and where I’m proudly Scottish, I’m also proudly European. I want my country to be internationalist, cooperative, ecological, fair, European – and the people of Scotland along with the people of Northern Ireland and the people of London and lots and lots of people in Wales and England also voted to remain within our family of nations. I demand that that status and that esprit européen be respected.
"Colleagues, there are a lot of things to be negotiated and we will need cool heads and warm hearts, but please remember this: Scotland did not let you down. Please, I beg you, cher colleagues, do not let Scotland down now."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel