Which currency would an independent Scotland use? Alex Salmond’s answer to that question used to be the euro. Back in 2009, the Scottish First Minister quipped that sterling was “sinking like a stone” and argued that euro membership was becoming increasingly attractive (“the parlous state of the UK economy has caused many people in the business community and elsewhere to view membership favourably”). But that, to put it mildly, is no longer the case and so Salmond has changed tack. The SNP leader’s new preference is for Scotland to retain the pound in a formal currency union with the rest of the UK after independence is declared.
But that isn’t as simple as it sounds. As a new Treasury report makes clear, the UK would only agree to a currency union were significant constraints to be imposed on Scotland’s tax and spending policies, the lesson of the eurozone crisis being that monetary union is inherently unstable without fiscal union. Were Scotland to reject such restrictions, it would be left with three options: to continue to use sterling unilaterally (rather like Panama uses the dollar and Kosovo uses the euro), but without any say over monetary policy, to adopt the euro (if it is able to join the EU) or to form its own currency, a hazardous path at any time for a small country but most of all during a global economic crisis.
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