Charles Kennedy would have been a powerful voice in the campaign to keep the UK in the EU, Nicola Sturgeon has told an audience in Brussels.
The First Minister paid tribute to the former Lib Dem leader as she addressed the European Policy Centre.
She began her keynote speech, which discussed the need for EU reform, by sharing her own memories of the former Highlands MP - including "skiving off" to the movies during a visit to Australia.
She told her audience of academics and EU officials: "I want to begin today with a few words about Charles Kennedy, former Scottish MP and Liberal Democrat leader.
"Charles Kennedy was one of these rare people in politics. He was an incredibly talented, gifted, effective politician - I think one of the most talented politicians of his generation. And yet somehow he also managed to be universally liked across the political spectrum and indeed across wider society. That is no mean feat.
"Charles will be remembered for many things. He made an outstanding and extraordinary contribution to, not just Scottish, but UK politics over a 30 year period. But I think he will be chiefly remembered for his principled opposition to the war in Iraq in 2003 and many of the concerns and criticisms he made then were of course subsequently found to be very well founded. And he also then - and perhaps partly because of that - went on to lead his party to its best ever election result in the 2005 general election.
"I have some very fond personal memories of Charles. I had the privilege of spending some time with him on a political study visit that we made together to Australia in the mid-1990s. Perhaps my fondest memory from that visit - if perhaps a slightly bizarre memory - was of the two of us skiving off one day to watch Trainspotting in a Melbourne cinema.
"I think we were the only two Scots in the audience at that time, so we drew some very strange looks from other people as we were uproariously laughing at lots of jokes that nobody else in the cinema were even beginning to understand. That's a small, but very special memory that I certainly will always treasure.
"The last thing to say about Charles for the moment is this - Charles Kennedy was a proud and passionate advocate of Europe and the UK's membership of the European Union. His would have been an incredibly powerful voice in the upcoming EU referendum, so for that reason but also for many, many other reasons I think our country today is much poorer for the passing of Charles Kennedy. I am sure I am not the only one here today who wants to send thoughts and condolences to Charles' family, his friends and to his party colleagues."
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