Campaigning situation

Denmark has a history of voting 'no' to a succession of EU treaties and proposals, on the issues of Maastricht, the Euro and Greenland's membership of the EC, but the outcome of the Constitution referendum is yet unclear. The referendum will be held the 27th of September this year.

The 'no' campaign has pushed for a fair referendum, and incorporates many individuals and organisations that are opposing the EU Constitution. The broad campaign, a Citizen's Initiative, called 'yes to Europe, no to the EU Constitution' has been founded and has already held two large conferences. The situation looks very much like before the Maastricht referendum.

A significant campaigning point for the 'no' campaign is the potential conflict between the Danish and European Constitutions. Article 6 of the EU's text enshrines the supremacy of EU law, but this supremacy may be questioned in the Danish courts. A transfer of Danish sovereignty, according to the Danish constitution, requires a 5/6 majority in Parliament following a binding referendum. Furthermore, the adoption of the EU constitution would certainly constitute a change in the Danish constitution, which requires two successive parliaments to support the change, as well as a binding referendum in which more than forty per cent of eligible voters support the change.

The government accepts that a yes means giving away sovereignty, but it does not see a clash with the Danish Constitution. The No-side refers to the Danish High Court judgement from the 6th of April 1998 (section 9.6) for instance this statement:

"Therefore Danish courts must consider an EC court act for useless in Denmark, if the extraordinary situation should occur, that it with the necessary certainty could be established that an EC court act, which is maintained by the EC court builds on a use of the Treaty, which is beyond the transfer of sovereignty according to the law of accession. Correspondingly applies in relation to the community rules and legal principles, which are due to the practise of the EC court." (not official translation).

The status for the no-sides campaign for fair referendum looks like this (9th of March 2005):

1. The government has rejected to distribute the EU-constitution to every voter/household or to distribute and make an information magazine with equal space for no and yes side

2. The government will not let Greenland and Faroe Island participate in the referendum despite that EU is moving into areas where the two North Atlantic parts of Denmark gets there influence through the Danish parliament. MEP Ole Krarup and I have made a chronicle about the question and the Citizen initiative yes to Europe - No to EU constitution lifted the question at a conference last year with participation of the Faroes Islands PM and the a former Greenlandic PM (who is now member of the Danish Parliament).

3. The government has not promised not to use the central administration and the Danish PM refers to a code of conduct where there are different principles for a referendum and a Parliament election - and "surprisingly" the government has freer hands when it comes to referenda. However the government has promised not to make information propaganda and they have banned information from the EU Commission (only UK have done that besides Denmark). click here

4. The government claims that 50% of the public information money will go to the yes side and 50% will go to the no side. The No-side does not agree that the money is equally distributed because the government does not count the money which is already being distributed. Earlier this year they took around 1,4 million DKK from the no side and transferred it to the yes side; see (NB! article does only talk about the movements and not the no parties). The No side also stresses that there are no promises that public information money which is distributed after application will be distributed equally between yes and no.

However the government will use 30 million DKK for information (about A 2,5 million) and 2 million DKK will go to administration, 7 million DKK goes to the yes-parties and 7 million DKK will be shared between the two movements and the two no-parties and 14 million will be distributed after application - however 3 of these 14 million will be earmarked for the European movement (yes), New Europe (yes) and Trade Unions against the Union (No). So the public distribution of money is quite fair, but we already know that the No side is economically light years after the yes side due to Employer Unions and Largest Trade Unions support for a yes. Already now it is clear that Danish Industry www.di.dk will use 7 Million DKK in there own campaign (for a yes) and the counter part for trade unions will do the same and on top of that they promise to support the yes parties with more money.

5. The yes side chose the date for the referendum without listening to the No-side. The No-side wanted to vote the same day as UK so none of the two sides could benefit from voting before or after UK.