Denmark

Danish Prime Minsiter Anders Fogh Rasmussen is currently negotiating with the opposition to prepare a September referendum aiming at scrapping Denmark’s EU treaty opt-outs on judicial and defence cooperation. On that occasion he also wants to announce that a referendum will also be held on the adoption of the euro. The Prime Minister has opted for a two step strategy hoping that he will easily win the first referendum creating political momentum for the second one. Rasmussen is widely believed to be in line for the job as EU Council president on behalf of the liberals, a couple of wins could really boost his chances.

The ratification process of the Lisbon treaty is on tracks. In the end of April Portugal, Denmark and the lowerhouse of Germany’s parliament ratified the new treaty. That brings the total number of countries that have ratified to ten. While the Europeans know that something is going on they generally have absolutely no idea what the treaty is all about. In most countries the politicians keep quiet on the subject, afraid to open Pandora’s Box, and the media are silent as well. It may seem as a good idea today not to consult the Europeans on the treaty, but it could come back as boomerang in a few years from know and hit very, very hard.

There will be no referendum on the new treaty in Denmark. The civil servants from the department of justice who had negotiated the treaty, pinpointing what parts of the Constitution should be changed for Denmark not to be legally obliged to hold a referendum, were the same civil servants who gave the treaty its sovereignty check. There was never going to be a referendum. The problem? It does not look good. At all. To the European leaders the treaty provides the institutional framework that enables the Union to move forward. In this way, so the reasoning goes, the EU can deliver results and the Europeans will come to cherish the Union. The problem is that if the EU as a political system is considered illegitimate, the Europeans are not going to appreciate what the EU is doing. Instead they will see illegitimate decisions taken by an illegitimate political system. The new treaty might be good for Europe. But it has only aggravated the commonly held idea that the European politicians take decisions behind the backs of the Europeans. One day the EU will have to face its people.

There will be no referendum on the Lisbon-Treaty in Denmark. It was officially announced Tuesday 11 December by Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen. In his usual strategic way Mr. Rasmussen had sent the treaty to the department of justice for a ’transfer of sovereignty check’ after the treaty-negotiations were completed in October. In this way he could allude to the check being carried out whenever journalists would ask him the explosive question in the run-up to the early November Danish elections that were won by Mr. Rasmussen. Had the Danes held a referendum it would have been a hard blow for the EU. Not so much because of a Danish no. The other 26 would not accept another dead end and would move on and leave Denmark to decide whether the future of the small country should be inside or outside the Union. But a Danish referendum could very easily have triggered a British referendum and that would unquestionably have led to a no. The political realities are that Denmark and Britain do not count the same on the scale and voila…the EU would have found itself in another institutional dead end. Gordon Brown now has one less problem to worry about.

Thursday the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, presented his government’s programme for the upcoming years after winning the recently held elections. In a surprise move Mr. Rasmussen had included a reference to the four Danish opt-outs in the programme. The latter stated that a referendum should be held on the four opt-outs i.e. the euro, justice and home affairs, defence and the Union citizenship. The referendum is believed to take place next year or at the latest in 2009, however the Danish PM refused to specify whether the Danes by then would vote on all the opt-outs en bloc or only on some of them. At present Mr. Rasmussen seems to be asking himself which combination of opt-outs would stand the greatest chance of making it through what could become, as always, an unpredictable referendum. Meanwhile, there is no news on the Reform Treaty. No news is, in this case, good news for the European leaders, Gordon Brown notably, who cross their fingers that Mr. Rasmussen will not give in to demands for a referendum on the treaty.