Seòmar agus comataidhean

On the point that Rachael Hamilton made, I heartily agree that it would be better if we were meeting offline rather than online, with me sitting in my car. However, there are good reasons why there are certain constraints on us at the moment. We should not overlook that.

I think that what is proposed is a reasonable course of action, but we should be clear about what we are trying to find out. Presumably, we are trying to find out when the final version of the SI was made available to the Scottish Government, because we are not interested in when drafts were available.

There is no ban on the committee writing to the UK Government to ask questions.

Apologies. For complicated reasons, I am in my car today. I did not quite catch everything that you said. Did you say that the SI will be laid only tomorrow in the UK Parliament? Has the UK Government offered an explanation for the timing of that?

I want to pick up on what has been said. I understand the point that is being made about the process for an SI, but I disagree with the idea that it is not this committee’s role to ask questions of the UK Government about timing. I do not want to leave the impression hanging there that the UK Government’s role is irrelevant. If we are going to ask the Scottish Government a question about timing, given what has just been said, it is entirely relevant that we write to the UK Government and ask it the question.

Thank you for that invitation.

Mr Salamone, I think that you referred to Norway and the success that Norway as a non-EU actor has in engaging—“engaging” is a great and flexible word—with European institutions. What is Norway doing to be so successful? The obvious answer, I suppose, is that it is a long time since Norway had someone else represent it by sending its diplomatic budget via Stockholm. Is the implication for Scotland that we need to scale up our activities?

Thank you. I will ask a question of Dr Zuleeg. Scotland’s predicament, of course, involves being both non-independent and non-EU. Given some of what has been discussed today about the complicated relationships between the Scottish and UK Governments and between the UK Government and Europe, what are the opportunities for multilateral direct engagement between the Scottish Government and EU states or sub-states? Do you feel that—how can I put this?—we should not wait for the UK to come up with a helpful position before we do that engagement?

I put the same question to Mr Salamone. How do Europeanisation and alignment connect?

As you are very aware, Scotland’s position is one of a state of flux to some extent. It is interesting that you mentioned alignment, and I think that Mr Salamone used the word “Europeanisation” to describe what is happening to our political culture. I suppose that this is a question for both of you. Are those two sides of the same coin? Are we talking about roughly the same thing, or different things?

Welcome, Mr McAllister. It is always nice to have a friendly and very diplomatic face to deal with in our relationship with the European Parliament. You are diplomatic, and you have rightly said a number of times that you have to respect the constitutional order in the UK. Of course, I do not have to do that, so I will ask a question as diplomatically as I can.

You have said that we can use channels through the UK to communicate with the EU, and you have alluded gently to the fact that the relationship between the UK and the EU has not been simple over the past few years. The Scottish Government and many actors in Scotland have a sense of frustration that, for reasons that are not your fault, we cannot exercise any formal channels of parliamentary communication and we have to rely on the informal ones. Has that frustration been conveyed or is it widely appreciated?