This article examines the interaction between Danish European and Nordic attitudes and policies in the postwar period. Attention is primarily dedicated to an analysis of how Nordic attitudes and policies have influenced Denmark's relations with Europe, and especially with the EEC/EU project. The article highlights how this interaction has moved through several different phases, and how priorities have shifted over time, with the Nordic policies functioning as an alternative to, as a platform for, and as a supplement to, Danish European policies. Despite the fact that most of the political elite early on lost belief in Norden as an alternative to Europe, this idea, stimulated by the intensive official and private cultivation of Nordic co-operation, kept its attraction among broad segments of the population. As a consequence a schism has developed between elite and popular attitutudes twoards European integration, and part of this schism must be explained with reference to how the vision of a Nordic alternative has continued to serve as a de-legitimiser of Danish involvement with the EEC/EU. However, this interdependence may be entering a new phase as a result of Finland and Sweden entering the EU in 1995.
Since the late 1970s Denmark has persistently belonged to the small group of states honouring the UN goal for rich countries to donate at least 0,7 per cent of GNP yearly in o cial development aid. is approach has allowed Denmark to pursue an activist policy both multilaterally within international development institutions such as the World Bank, DAC, UNDP, etc. and bilaterally in relation to development countries where Danida, the central Danish aid organization, has been active. Development aid activism and inter- nationalism reached a zenith in the decade after the fall of the Berlin wall when Danish ODA passed the 1 per cent threshold and when the aid component under the heading of „active multilateralism“ was sought integrated into all dimensions of Danish foreign policy. is trend was reversed in the period after 2001 when the Liberal Fogh Rasmussen government took o ce backed by the development aid sceptics in the Danish People’s Party. Critics even maintain that Danish development has seen change resembling a paradigm shift in the post-2001 period. e problem, however, is complex and therefore, on the basis of an analysis of the prioritizing, the orientation and the international pro ling of Danish development aid, this article seeks to disentangle and discuss continuities and break in the role of development aid in Danish foreign policy since the adoption of the rst Danish development aid law in 1962.
Since becoming a member of the European Community in 1973, Denmark has conducted seven referenda on its involvement in the process of European integration. Five of the referenda have produced a ‘yes’ to accession and further integration while the remaining two have resulted in ‘noes’. The Danish approach of using referenda, of claiming opt-outs after ‘noes’ and of setting up parliamentary controls to check government policy in Brussels has been a way of checking Europeanization - in this article termed ‘denmarkization’. For a long period, the two processes of Europeanization and denmarkization have co-existed and helped to create equilibrium and legitimacy behind Danish European policy. However, this seems to have changed lately as denmarkization by centre-right and populist parties no longer appears efficient in safeguarding Danish sovereignty in the vital welfare domain. This has provoked a situation in which Europeanization and denmarkization according to the interpretation of this article are heading for collision, which will necessitate some form of reconfiguration of Danish European policy. This article investigates and discusses this dual-faced aspect of the Danish membership experience and finally raises the question of whether this experience finds parallels in other EU member states
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