Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth will hold talks with Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney to develop a “progressive alliance” between the two countries.
SNP leader Swinney has vowed to worked with Welsh nationalists to show their respective countries there is a “positive alternative to Westminster’s despair and decline”.
Ap Iorwerth said they had a “genuine opportunity to show the power of progressive politics”.
The meeting will also focus on efforts to tackle child poverty, with Plaid Cymru having already pledged it will pilot a version of the Scottish Child Payment if it forms the government in Wales if it is elected next year.
Speaking before Thursday’s meeting, Swinney made clear his view that the “Westminster status quo is not working”.
“Bills are going up, people are struggling and the UK Labour government’s answer is racing further and further to the right to keep up with Nigel Farage.”
Swinney said both the SNP and Welsh nationalists in Plaid Cymru shared a vision of “a society in which we support people with the cost of living rather than leaving them to languish while the rich get richer”.
He added with the two parties working together, they can “make clear that a better future is possible – and that comes with the fresh start of independence”.
Ap Iorwerth said he was looking forward to meeting Swinney to “discuss our shared vision for the future of our nations”.
“A Plaid Cymru government would be eager to adopt best practice from around the world when it comes to adopting policies to improve people’s day-to-day lives and where better to start than with one of our closest allies in Scotland,” ap Iorwerth said.
“The Scottish Child Payment is a radical and exciting policy which we are committed to introducing as a Welsh pilot should Plaid Cymru form the next government in May.
“Thanks to measures like this, Scotland is the only part of the UK where child poverty rates are set to drop in the coming years. I want that to be the case in Wales too.”
“With an SNP government in Scotland and a Plaid Cymru government in Wales next May, our nations will have the strongest voices possible that Westminster can simply no longer ignore,” ap Iorwerth added.
A Reform UK Wales spokesperson said: “These talks have raised the stakes for next year’s Senedd elections even further.
“Plaid Cymru are copying the SNP’s homework, even though they have delivered the highest drug deaths in Europe, higher income tax than the rest of the UK and an obsession with breaking up the union to the detriment of our NHS.”
