SNP Protest as Shetland Wiped Off Euro-Map

Scottish National Party MEP Mr Alyn Smith has today (Monday) written to the head of the European Chambers of Commerce after noticing that the annual survey of the institution had omitted Shetland from their all six of their statistical maps of Europe.

The annual publication, which gives figures on business activity across Europe broken down into regions, treats Scotland as a region for the purposes of gathering statistics, yet when the information is broken down into map format, Shetland was omitted from the picture.

The SNP MEP said:

"It was depressing enough to read that business confidence in Scotland is lower than in parts of Poland and Eastern Germany, but when I saw that Shetland had not been included at all it was a red rag to a bull. I have written to the head of Eurochambres in order to register my protest and ensure that this does not happen again.

"And of course, Scotland could be doing so much better. If we exploited renewable energy we could be Europe's green energy powerhouse, with Shetland leading the way. Yet because of turf war wrangles of the UK institutions the interconnector is still not built, while the Danes and Germans steal a march on us in this crucial technology. Scottish confidence was according to the survey 34.3% negative as opposed to 17.6% for the UK as a whole. The Scottish status quo is not working."