For Scotland to match the EU's excessive deficit threshold, large spending cuts or revenue increases would be required
The GERS report can't tell us what an independent Scotland's fiscal position would be - that would depend on the tax and spending decisions it would choose to and/or be forced to make. What the GERS figures do show us, however, is by how much Scotland's fiscal position would need to improve (compared to its "current constitutional arrangements" levels of tax and spend) to achieve fiscal sustainability.
This chart places Scotland's deficit in the context of both the EU's excessive deficit threshold and the UK's deficit and quantifies what it would take to close the gap to either of those (or to eliminate the deficit entirely).
To simply be "no worse off than we are today" (if assuming liability for just a population share of the UK's accumulating debt), an independent or fiscally autonomous Scotland would need to match the UK's per capita deficit levels - a £15.1bn challenge on 2025/26's numbers.
Whilst meeting the 3% excessive deficit criteria is not a pre-condition for joining the EU, the requirements of chapter 17 of the acquis communautaire must be met. This means that even before joining the Eurozone, Excessive Deficit Procedures (EDP) can apply. Poland, Hungary, and Romania are cases in point - non-Eurozone EU members such as these can have their EU funding suspended (rather than fines being applied). Whether or not one expects an independent Scotland to join the EU, the 3% deficit limit is a useful benchmark: it is the threshold above which EU member states become subject to corrective action, and it is the target the SNP's own Growth Commission adopted for an independent Scotland. Meeting the 3% deficit threshold is an £18.3bn challenge on 2025/26's numbers.
Under the EU's reformed fiscal rules, 3% is a ceiling - member states are required to reduce their structural deficit to 1.5% of GDP to build fiscal buffers. Furthermore, if Scotland were independent, borrowing levels would be heavily scrutinised, particularly if attempting to establish a stable independent currency that could be aligned with the Euro. Under those conditions, a strong case can be made that doing more than "just" meeting the 3% excessive deficit threshold would be required. The scale of the challenge to fully eliminate the deficit is shown here within that context - a £25.3bn challenge on 2025/26's numbers.
These scaling figures are all based on the chosen year's GDP. It should be noted that (for example) increasing taxes or reducing spending may slow GDP growth.
Growing GDP faster than spending (but still growing revenue in line with GDP) would be another way of closing the deficit gaps. For example, if revenue as a percentage of GDP remained the same, a 16.5% reduction in spending (measured as a percent of GDP) would require a 19.8% rise in GDP over a period where spending remained static