A Viking Champion

A Viking Champion

There may be doubts growing elsewhere in Europe
about eastward enlargement, but the candidate countries have a
champion in Denmark, which assumed the rotating presidency in
July.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
named the eastward enlargement of the European Union as his most
important goal when his government took over the EU’s presidency on
1 July. The government’s ambitions to enlarge the union will be
helped by a strong pro-enlargement consensus within the Danish
parliament. That consensus, here in the country that holds the
presidency, stands in stark contrast to the political climate in
many other EU and applicant countries, where enlargement is being
bitterly debated.

In a document released to mark the handover of
the six-month rotating presidency from Spain, Rasmussen and Danish
Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller wrote, “Whether we succeed in
completing the first round of the enlargement negotiations is not
in the hands of the Danish presidency alone. The government,
however, will make this our top priority.”

The Social Democratic Party (SDP), the major
opposition in parliament to Rasmussen’s Liberals, has also been a
strong supporter of EU enlargement ever since the end of the Cold
War. It is now rallying to support its traditional political
enemy.

“Enlargement is above right and left. It is too
important an idea to be drawn into domestic politics,” said Erik
Boel, international secretary of the SDP.

“We don’t think enlargement is only a Social
Democrat project. The new government has backed this
wholeheartedly. They are devoted, committed, and very experienced,”
said Boel.

The Social Democrats had governed Denmark for
almost a decade until their electoral defeat by the Liberals last
November.

Charlotte Antonsen, the Liberal Party’s
spokeswoman for European affairs, said she is grateful for the
Social Democrats’ support. “It’s going to be easier to concentrate
on enlargement when [Rasmussen] doesn’t have to worry about
forcefully explaining his policies to his own parliament,” said
Antonsen.

Antonsen also pointed to a Denmark’s long
tradition of consensus politics and political integrity when key
issues are in question. In the same way, she said that Danish
domestic political factors would not have any effect on the
upcoming enlargement negotiations.

“We have a tradition of forgetting about
national interests and taking the larger view of things,” said
Antonsen.

But there is one big question mark: the attitude
of the Dansk Folkeparti, or the Danish People’s Party. Criticized
by some for anti-immigrant policies, Dansk Folkeparti is now the
third-largest political party in Denmark, with 12 percent of the
national vote during the last election and 22 out of 179 seats in
the parliament. Though not a member of the coalition government,
the government does rely on Dansk Folkeparti votes to ensure a
majority in parliament. On 3 July, Pia Kjaersgaard, the party’s
leader, said she would try to “pull the handbrake” on
enlargement.

“It’s a problem if the Danish chairmanship
sticks to the idea of enlargement at any cost,” said Peter Skaarup,
vice president of the Dansk Folkeparti. Skaarup worries that the
Danish government could lose a great deal of prestige if
enlargement were to fail because of, perhaps, a failed Irish
referendum on the Nice treaty or a “no” vote on accession in
Poland. However, Skaarup suggests other reasons for postponing
enlargement other than just the possibility of negotiations
failing.

“We believe enlargement is a beneficial thing in
the long run, but we have to trim the power of the European Union
first,” said Skaarup. In his view, a strong European Union would
dilute the power of the Danish state, something the Dansk
Folkeparti opposes: “What about our culture? What about our
sovereignty?” he asks.

The party is also concerned that lower-paid
workers from Central and Eastern Europe could flood the labor
markets of Western Europe once their countries are admitted to the
union, pushing wages down. The Dansk Folkeparti wants a seven-year
moratorium on opening Denmark’s labor market to workers from new EU
member countries, something Rasmussen refuses to ask for.

Despite the opposition of Dansk Folkeparti, the
government has a comfortable pro-enlargement consensus in
Parliament. Other Danish Euroskeptics are therefore being forced to
rethink their tactics. Enhedslisten, a stridently Euroskeptical
party composed of former Greens and Communists, said it is now
resigned to the inevitability of enlargement. Its main aim now,
party leaders say, is to push to ensure that the new applicants
join the union on equitable terms.

“It will be a ‘discount’ enlargement, in the
sense that the new countries will not get the same level of support
that, for instance, Ireland and Spain did when they joined,” said
Keld Albrechtsen, an Enhedslisten MP and member of Denmark’s
parliamentary subcommittee on Europe. “We will try to put pressure
on the presidency to meet the new countries with better terms. If
enlargement is going to happen, we would like it to be as fair as
possible,” said Albrechtsen.

If the terms of enlargement become unacceptable
to Enhedslisten, Albrechtsen said, members of his party may
cooperate with anti-accession groups inside the applicant
countries, as long as those groups are not right wing or
populist.

Despite turbulence on the right and left of the
political scene, all Danish political parties are, for now at
least, allowing domestic politics to take a backseat while
Rasmussen’s presidency of the EU moves forward. The calm on the
Danish home front may not be the factor that determines whether the
accession process succeeds. However, that calm–assuming it
lasts–will at least allow Rasmussen to concentrate fully on the
complex and difficult negotiations to come.

Peter Darling is a freelance journalist based in
Copenhagen.

To read more about the candidate countries,
please visit

Transitions Online.