I read this quote on another page:
Yes, Scandinavia is part of Europe. If you mean the continent, that’s irrefutable. If you mean in some other way, I can not answer you.
From http://m-w.com
Main Entry: Scan·di·na·via
Pronunciation: "skan-d&-'nA-vE-&, -vy&
Usage: geographical name
1 peninsula N Europe occupied by Norway & Sweden
2 Denmark, Norway, Sweden, & sometimes also Iceland, the Faeroe Islands, & Finland
The Ural Mountains are accepted as the northern boundary of Europe and Asia. They are well within the European side of the Urals.
I don’t know how this stuff is defined in Scotland, though.
I was just wondering if anyone else on the board made this distinction. Myself I have always considered Europe and Scandanavia to be both culturally and geograpically European.
It’s a typically Scottish ignorant sweeping sociopolitical generalisation. (Yes, my tongue is in my cheek.) The author is wanting to emphasise the differences between northern Europe (in which Finland is probably being included despite not being Scandinavian) and central and Mediterranean Europe. And Scotland has many common traits with northern Europe that even England does not have. But it’s all Europe.
I guess my take on it is to imagine somebody claiming that Newfoundland isn’t part of North America, because it’s so different from Texas and from Mexico. Meaningless.
You might be getting a cultural distinction – England for many years did not consider itself part of Europe (I don’t know what the Scots/Welsh concept was). Likewise there may be a sense that the large mass of contiguous countries from Poland to Greece to France constitute a cultural entity that the Fennoscandic peoples are not an integral part of. Maybe some of our Eurodopers can speak more to this – clairobscur usually has a pretty good handle on cultural attitudes, and flodnak up in Oslo is nearly equally sound on that sort of thing.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by this - certainly there has always been a tendency to use the word ‘Europe’ as shorthand for ‘the European mainland’, or even for ‘France and Germany’.
That, and a slightly supercilious attitude of “all those people over there on the mainland who keep having wars amongst themselves that we British have to come in and straighten out.” (I’ve been rereading Churchill, and so I’m looking at a Britain past, here.) No slam intended on the present inhabitants of the sceptred isle!
None taken! But yes, I guess it comes from pre-19th century history, Ireland, plus the Empire, that gives a whole ‘us and everyone overseas’ attitude. Mind you, Churchill was a thoroughly repellant creature, with the one saving grace that he won the war. (Still doesn’t excuse him for producing offspring that created Nicholas Soames, but that’s another matter)
The only way I could see that someone could separate any of the Scandinavian countries from the rest of Europe would be if you considered the European Union since, if memory serves me right, Norway rejected entry into the EU in 1994.
Still seems pretty odd to separate Scandinavia from the rest of Europe though, maybe to make a cultural point but still, pretty odd.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, it’s late and my memory might be acting up
grey_ideas
And, of course, Sweden and Denmark decided against switching to the euro. (Not that Denmark is part of Scandinavia, but it often gets lumped in there.)
It’s very appropriate to identify the hostility shown towards the EU and the Euro as a northern-European trait…but that backs up my earlier comment that it’s nothing particularly Scandinavian, for Britian shares such seemingly-ingrained suspicion.
But still, to suggest that the quote in the OP really had anything to do with EU borders is nonsense.
Because there’s geographic Scandinavia (the peninsula) and cultural Scandinavia.
Plus Finland, who gets lumped in by association.
Uh, Denmark is not a part of Scandanavia? 
I’d query that one, too - are you willing to back it up, Colophon?
Denmark is part of Scandinavia. Finland is the odd-ball, being goegraphically Scandinavian, but not linguistically Scandinavian (if we ignore the sizeable Swedish speaking population there).
Denmark isn’t part of the Scandinavian peninsula. Geographically Scandinavia consists of Norway and Sweden. Culturally Denmark is part of Scandinavia. When you include Finland you get the Nordic countries. I’m not sure how Iceland would be classified.
Culturally and geographically, Denmark is very much a part of Scandinavia. And all are a part of northern Europe. If you speak of only the Scandinavian peninsula, then you have narrowed it down to Norway and Sweden. But that wasn’t the question.
I’m guessing that the guy quoted in the OP thinks of “Europe” as being only those regions which were once under the dominion of the Roman Empire, and therefore share a common sense of classical Western history. Scandinavia didn’t enter the “classic Western” historical picture until much later.
I really don’t think the guy’s thought it through that thoroughly. And in any case, that idea eliminates most of central and eastern Europe, while including much of Arabia.