Scottish Parliament – May 15, 2025 – 2

S6M-17539.1: As an amendment to motion S6M-17539 in the name of Angus Robertson (Scotland in Today’s Europe), leave out from “agrees” to end and insert “welcomes the UK Government resetting the UK’s relationship with the EU following the chaotic and damaging approach of the previous UK Conservative administration;

further welcomes the summit to be held on 19 May 2025;

welcomes the commitment by the UK Government to create a strategic partnership between the UK and the EU to agree a path forward on trade, security and defence;

believes that economic growth, raising living standards and defence and security must be the highest of priorities for the Scottish and UK governments;

welcomes the UK Government’s specific commitment to negotiate a sanitary and phytosanitary veterinary agreement so that agricultural products, food and drink can be traded more cheaply between the EU and the UK, which could boost agri-food exports to the EU by up to 22.5%;

further welcomes the commitment by the Prime Minister to improve security co-operation with the EU and to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, which will benefit jobs and industries in Scotland;

welcomes the UK Government’s newly negotiated trade deals with the United States and India, noting the importance of the latter for Scotland’s whisky industry;

calls on the Scottish Government to support the UK Government’s efforts to rebuild the relationship with European friends and neighbours, and further calls on the Scottish Government to set out what actions it will take to improve economic growth and living standards in Scotland, including whether its public procurement processes will emulate those in other European countries in driving place-based industrial development, using the powers that it has and the record funding settlement that it has received from the UK Government of £47.7 billion this financial year.”

Original motion(S6M-17539): That the Parliament agrees that the best relationship that Scotland and the UK can have with the EU is to be a member of the EU;

calls on the UK Government to drop its red lines on the single market, customs union and freedom of movement;

further calls on the UK Government, at its forthcoming summit with the EU, as a first step, to negotiate an ambitious veterinary, food and drink agreement, closer energy and climate co-operation, greater freedom of movement, including opportunities for young people, and further measures to lessen the ongoing economic, social and cultural damage of Brexit, and believes that it is unacceptable that the UK Government has not shared any draft summit texts with the Scottish or other devolved governments.