EU vows to stay out of Scottish independence vote

The European Union vowed today to stay out of the Scottish independence referendum debate as questions flew over Scotland's prospects of membership in the bloc if it splits from Britain.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso angered Scottish nationalists when he warned in February it would be "difficult, if not impossible" for an independent Scotland to become an EU member.
But commission spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen refused today to comment when journalists repeatedly asked what would happen if Scotland voted to secede from the United Kingdom in a September 18 referendum.
"The European Commission very much respects the ongoing democratic process and recalls...That it is for the Scottish and for the British citizens to decide on the future of Scotland," she told a daily press briefing.

"We do not feel at this time, in the...Middle of the final stages of the campaign, that we should interfere with what is an internal democratic process.
"This is why I'm not going to now detail what we've already very, very clearly described and explained in the past."

The campaign is heating up as an opinion poll published over the weekend put the separatists ahead of the pro-union camp for the first time.
In a BBC interview in February, Barroso, who heads the EU executive, said it "will be extremely difficult to get the approval of all the other (EU) member states to have a new member coming from one member state."

The comments drew a sharp rebuke from Scotland's Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, whose Scottish National Party (SNP) is spearheading the pro-independence campaign.
"The question of Scotland's independent membership of the EU is a matter for the democratic wishes of the people of Scotland and the views of other member states -- not the European Commission," she said.