There was whisky, haggis, kilts and bagpipes — which is handy, as it gets all the clichés required for an article about Scotland out of the way at the start.

As the Church of Scotland in Brussels held its annual Burns supper at the weekend, something extra hung in the air along with the traditional songs and the aroma of offal — Brexit.

Scots have played a significant role in the EU since the U.K. joined in 1973. Commissioners, diplomats, officials, journalists and lobbyists from Scotland have all made their home in the Belgian capital. Many have been here for decades. Now, while many will remain after Brexit, their country will not be part of the club.

That's a big source of anger, frustration and regret. At Saturday night's celebration of Scotland's national poet, Jacquelyn MacLennan, a competition lawyer, declared in a speech that she is sure she is among the people "viscerally and intellectually convinced that for the U.K. and Scotland to leave the EU is just simply wrong."

The audience of around 100 people, gathered in a room at St. Andrew's Church adorned with Scottish, EU and Belgian flags as well as tartan cloth, broke into applause.

In some ways, the Scots' situation is similar to that of other expat Brits in Brussels who support the EU. But the fact that Scotland voted strongly to remain in the bloc while the U.K. as a whole voted to leave makes the frustration even greater.

Matthew Zadow, an opera singer who acted as master of ceremonies at the supper, said Brexit had been "depressing as hell" for members of the church. He noted St. Andrew's is a memorial church dedicated to Scottish soldiers who died in World War I and said the congregation is "deeply committed to the European experiment."

Scottish signature

Among the Scots who have played prominent roles in the EU are John Kerr, formerly Britain's ambassador to the bloc, who later wrote the Article 50 procedure for leaving the EU, and David Edward, a former judge at the European Court of Justice.

Winnie Ewing, a Scottish National Party politician, made a name for herself as "Madame Écosse," one of the first U.K. members of the European Parliament.

As Scotland is part of an EU member country, rather than being one in its own right, it's not straightforward to identify a specifically Scottish legacy from the country's time in the EU. But on a gray afternoon in Brussels last week, two Scottish members of the European Parliament suggested regional policy as an area in which Scots have had a disproportionate impact.

One of Britain's first European commissioners, George Thomson, was responsible for regional policy, as was his fellow Scottish Labour politician Bruce Millan, who later held the same portfolio for seven years.

Under Thomson, the EU established its regional fund, spending money to regenerate economically disadvantaged and remote areas of the Continent. Regional and so-called cohesion funding now make up one of the largest slices of the EU budget.

David Martin, a Scottish MEP who is one of the longest-serving members of the current Parliament, recalled that Millan took up his proposal in the 1980s to create a scheme to help regions suffering from the demise of the coal industry.

"I was extremely fortunate because Bruce Millan — also Scottish — was by then the regional policy commissioner and Bruce understood exactly and precisely what the problems were and supported the creation of the fund," Martin said in his Parliament office, a mug on the table emblazoned with the definition of the word "eejit."

Scottish decor is more obvious in the office of Alyn Smith, a Scottish National Party MEP. Large Scottish and EU flags stand in the corner, and a model of Brussels landmark Manneken Pis swathed in a makeshift kilt sits above Smith's desk.

In the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, Smith made a passionate plea to his colleagues in the European Parliament not to "let Scotland down." Fellow parliamentarians responded with a standing ovation and the speech went viral.

Asked last week how he felt things had played out since then, Smith deadpanned with a smile: "Work in progress."

The Scottish government floated the idea of Scotland remaining in the EU's single market even if the rest of the U.K. leaves. But the British government has rejected that notion, meaning it was effectively a non-starter in the Brexit negotiations, and Brussels showed little enthusiasm for it.

"The realpolitik is ... there's very few things that anybody in the EU could have done for us," said Smith. "On some levels, I'd have liked to have seen more warm words but in other ways ... this is our domestic stuff that we need to sort out."

Becoming Belgian

Not every Scot is an EU enthusiast. Some research has suggested that Scots' underlying attitudes toward the EU are not so different from those elsewhere in the U.K. And one of the country's six MEPs, David Coburn, represents the Euroskeptic UKIP.

But at the Burns supper, diners expressed sadness at Scotland and Britain's impending departure from the EU, even if they were wary about being quoted on the record as their work requires them to be apolitical.

Sonia, an office administrator from eastern Scotland who has lived in Brussels for 20 years, said she had been so sure the U.K. would vote to remain in 2016 that she had brought shortbread, champagne and champagne flutes into her office in advance.

"When the day came, it was like someone had died," she said. "Our European colleagues came to console us."

Like other Brits, many Brussels Scots have applied for Belgian citizenship to ensure they and their families continue to have the right to live and work here. "I'm not Belgian yet," one guest at the supper said. "I have to wait until April."

But others may choose to move elsewhere, and the flow of Scots into the city may dwindle without the prospect of jobs inside EU institutions.

There's one sign the Scottish community may already be in decline. A Carrefour supermarket near the European Parliament has stopped stocking cans of Irn-Bru — the sugary soda dubbed Scotland's "other national drink" — in a spot by the shortbread in the ethnic food section.