Denmark and the European Union

Lee Miles, Anders Wivel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135103255
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book offers an accessible, coherent and comprehensive analysis of the recent, contemporary and future challenges and possibilities facing Denmark in the European integration process.

The book traces the formal as well as the informal ways of influence and adaptation in Denmark's relations with the European Union. In doing so, it also offers a contribution to our understanding of Europe as a differentiated political arena. Topics covered include:

• Identifying the challenges and opportunities of Danish EU membership, via the policies pursued by Denmark in Europe.
• The ways in which Denmark adapts to the European integration process .
• Consequences of EU integration for citizen rights, democracy, policy coordination and implementation efficiency.

Denmark and the European Union will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union and integration politics.

1 Introducing Denmark and the European Union¹

Lee Miles and Anders Wivel

Denmark eventually became a full member of the European Union (EU) on 1 January 1973, more than 40 years ago and thus, it has been long time since the country could be accurately categorized as a ‘new member state’ undergoing a ‘normal’ transitional phase to the obligations and demands of EU accession. There is a 40-year track record of full membership status worthy of detailed and comprehensive investigation. Moreover, general perceptions are that Denmark's relations with the EU have been somewhat problematic at times, and indeed, largely as a result of the outcome of debates on the Treaty of the European Union (TEU) in the early 1990s, Denmark has enjoyed a rather distinctive institutional and legal set of circumstances pertaining to the characteristics of its continued full membership status, and its participation in further European integration. Phrases, such as ‘reluctant European’ and ‘intergovernmentalist’, and the description of Denmark as a state suffering from an ‘integration dilemma’ (Kelstrup 1993) – have all become part of the universal language that scholars, and even practitioners, regularly use to describe Denmark's experiences as a full EU member since 1973.

Nevertheless, despite the relatively long period as a full member, comprehensive studies of Denmark's complex relationship with the evolving European Community (EC)/European Union have been relatively sparse on the ground, especially those written in English that can be accessible to ‘non-Danish’ and ‘non-Scandinavian’ audiences and interested parties as well.²

The objective of this text is therefore to, at least for the most part, offer an accessible, coherent and comprehensive analysis of the recent, contemporary and future challenges and possibilities facing Denmark in the European integration process. Particular attention is placed upon tracing the formal as well as the informal ways of influence and adaptation in Denmark's relations with the EU. In doing so, the book seeks to provide a fresh contribution to our understanding of Europe, and more specifically, the EU as a differentiated political arena.

Furthermore, the book specifically aims at identifying the challenges and opportunities of Danish EU membership, past and present, by undertaking a fivefold approach, namely: (1) thematic discussions and historical analysis of the years and phases of Denmark's full membership (first two chapters) and; (2) selective policy evaluations of key specific EU domains in order to provide a balanced assessment of Danish attitudes and perspectives towards the ‘mixed’ policy portfolio of the evolving EU (Chapters 3 to 6) and; (3) institutional analyses of ‘Denmark in Europe’ and more specifically, Danish participation in, and relations towards, key EU institutions such as the Council of Ministers/European Council, European Commission and European Parliament (Chapters 7 to 10) as well as; (4) thematic investigations of the impact of European integration on Denmark – ‘Europe in Denmark’ (Chapters 11 to 14) and finally; (5) the added dimension of scholarly reflections on Denmark as a ‘small state’ in the EU, where considerable work has already been done, and thus is worthy of particular inclusion (Chapters 15 and 16).

By taking this ‘five-fold’ approach' – covering historical assessments, policy-analyses, institutional evaluations, thematic domestic politics and small state approaches – this book aims to provide the reader with a comprehensive view of Denmark's complex relationship with the EU. The editors have also been fortunate enough to recruit some of the leading scholars working on the EU and/or Danish politics and public administration so the book will be fit for purpose.

Thematic assumptions and conceptual starting-points

Given the comprehensiveness and complex nature of this text, the editors have refrained from requiring contributors to adopt one single approach and/or theory. They remain convinced that working to such strict theoretical remits would only end up producing a largely unconvincing text, where the credibility of one single approach would be stretched to the limit in a largely fruitless attempt at making ‘one size fit all’. The tension between the need for rigorous theoretical application and the nature of this project as a comprehensive ‘belts and braces’ study of Denmark and the EU would simply be too much.

However, the editors also wished to avoid the almost routine accusation of critics associated with edited books – namely that they have such diverse missions, that such texts suffer from very real dangers of fragmentation and incoherence. In order to balance these competing tensions, the editors have preferred to establish a set of conceptual tools that contributors can apply within the context of their specific chapters and, at the same time, provide cross-cutting reflections valuable for comparative analysis across the various chapters of the book. By taking this approach, the text should be more than the sum of its parts. The book aims at making a contribution to the knowledge of European integration and the ways in which a small state navigates within the European political and economic arena. It analyses how Denmark adapts to European realities, and contributes to constructing a differentiated Europe. Thus, its analysis synthesizes three clusters of theory: theories of Europeanization, theories of foreign policy analysis and theories of (differentiated) European integration.³

Europeanization

‘Europeanization’ as a concept ‘is essentially contested as to its usefulness for the study of European politics’ (Graziano and Vink 2007: 3) and to some, ‘Europeanization’ is not regarded as a separate ‘theory’, but rather as a phenomenon or problem that should be explained (Bulmer 2007; Featherstone and Radaelli 2003: 34). If this is the case, then it is important that Europeanization is not portrayed as a distinct theoretical or conceptual school of thought, but rather as being closer to a phenomenon that needs to be explained. Indeed, this view is largely assumed in the context of this book, which includes Europeanization concepts related to the fact that some of its component literature focuses on how the ‘downloading’ of EU affairs, business and acts takes place in the national context, the nature of ‘cross-loading’ among Danish actors, and the furthering of transnational activity between actors in Denmark and those in other countries, as well as the ‘uploading’ of national interests and preferences to the EU level, and within the EU domain.

It is pertinent to outline these concepts in a little more detail. Schmidt (2006) argues, for example, that Europeanization is essentially about these three dimensions. There is a vertical ‘downloading’ process by the EU, that broadly relates to the actions of EU institutions, for example: the outcomes of the EU policy cycle, (e.g. the consultation and implementation work of the European Commission), EU (largely secondary) legislation (like regulations and directives) and even decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), that result in EU business being disseminated ‘down’ to the national and sub-national domains (which usually require a response from national and sub-national actors and institutions). For the most part, such downloading can lead to (largely) ‘top-down’ changes, such as increasing attention and awareness on the part of domestic actors towards monitoring EU-related business and legislation, as well as the adaptation of domestic institutional structures and processes as a consequence of rising demands from EU policy-making.

In addition, there is a horizontal ‘sideways’ process of ‘cross-loading’ where responding to (and handling) EU business, policy outcomes and legislation encourages and shapes cooperation among national actors and institutions and, even below this, at the sub-national domain of regional and local government. Moreover, this cross-loading activity can have both internal (i.e. within the nation state – say between national actors in the Danish government and those of the parliament (the Folketing)) and/or external (between actors across transnational borders – for instance, Nordic cooperation between Danish institutions and those in other Nordic countries) characteristics. Finally there is an ‘uploading’ process, whereby national and sub-national actors and institutions develop and then seek to transmit their preferences and positions on EU questions to the supranational level (e.g. to EU institutions like the European Commission or European Council). Such uploading activities can take the form of, for example, lobbying activities by national or sub-national actors in Brussels, and/or the participation of Danish (national and regional) actors in EU Committees and working groups, where Danish preferences may be transmitted upwards from Denmark to the supranational domain of the EU. According to Börzel (2002: 196), such national and sub-national uploading is sought since the respective national and sub-national actors wish to: (1) reduce the need for legal and administrative adaptation in downloading EU policies and legislation into domestic structures that may imply financial and political costs and a reduction in any gains arising from participation in the EU; (2) prevent competitive disadvantages appearing for domestic industries that may be used to operate under existing national and even regional regimes; and (3) enable national and sub-national actors and institutions to address problems that continue to preoccupy domestic constituencies, yet can no longer be dealt with effectively at the domestic level.

Alongside these useful, and rather utilitarian concepts of downloading, cross-loading and uploading, which provide contributors and the reader with a useful comparative tool with which to gauge aspects of the Danish relationship with the EU across institutional, policy and even legalistic settings, Europeanization concepts are also useful in providing tools for explaining variations in the commitment of respective actors and institutions in Denmark towards aspects of European integration. Above all, Europeanization concepts can offer ways and means to understand for example why, in some areas, such as in environmental policy, Danish preferences towards European integration can be ambitious and can lead to large acceptance of the supranational benefits of EU governance, while in other realms, such as those of Justice and Home Affairs (JHA), Danish reluctance and caution is more substantial, leading to at least the premise of intergovernmental preferences for European cooperation.

Among the most useful is Börzel's idea that national and sub-national actors and institutions engaged in European cooperation, as part of Europeanization, can adopt differing types of strategies when seeking to upload preferences in particular. As Börzel (2002) argues, national and subnational actors and institutions can pursue strategies that are broadly akin to ‘pace-setting’, ‘fence-sitting’ and ‘foot-dragging’. In simple terms, pace-setting equates to when national and subnational actors and institutions actively promote and push policies at the EU level that largely reflect domestic policy preferences and it represents, in most instances, ‘the exporting of domestic policies at the European level’ (Börzel 2002: 197). On this basis, these actors and institutions may, for instance, articulate that national (in this case, Danish) policies are examples of ‘best in class’ or ‘best-practice’ that the rest of the EU should adopt as the EU norm. In contrast, fence-sitting behaviour by national and subnational actors and institutions is usually governed by the desire for Denmark to be viewed as a mainstream member state and as a ‘good European’ by others. When fence-sitting, Danish actors and institutions do not overtly champion issues or policies; they merely prefer to remain engaged because they perceive that there will be political and/or economic advantages from such participation. When fence-sitting, Danish actors and institutions neither systematically push respective issues or policies towards EU action, nor do they block them altogether, and thus do not prevent the attempts of others to do so (see Börzel 2002: 206). Where such actors and institutions are involved in foot-dragging, the main focus is for them to overtly defend Danish interests, even if this requires Denmark to be placed on the periphery of EU development. The main aim is largely to stop, delay, or at least contain, the attempts of other member states to upload their domestic preferences and policies to the EU level (see Börzel 2002: 203). Actor and institutional rationales for such foot-dragging are largely based on factors such as negative estimations about the implementation costs upon Denmark arising from such EU business or outcomes. However, it is also important to note that foot-dragging is seldom able to prevent the development of EU policies altogether, nor to prevent these having impacts on Denmark, and thus foot-dragging can result in compensatory measures being agreed, such as, side payments, package deals, derogations, opt-outs and opt-ins, that may enable Denmark to remain peripheral or even outside the respective EU development.⁴

Europeanization thus offers contributors a useful set of general concepts that provide tools for establishing the types, degrees and variations of Danish activity when handling questions of European integration. In the context of this book, they also provide the means to compare the activities of Danish national and subnational actors and institutions across the respective domains of Denmark's relationship with the EU, as addressed by the various contributors in this volume.

In addition, Europeanization concepts can also provide, albeit limited, ways of understanding the mechanisms by which Europe is discursively constructed in Denmark among political and administrative elites as well as in the public policy arena. Hence for this book, Europeanization occurs through a variety of mechanisms that are also largely dictated by the form of European integration being discussed, and/or taking place. A first mechanism is related to what can be referred to as negative integration, i.e. the gradual completion of the internal market by removing barriers to the free movement of goods, services, capital and people across the borders of the EU member states. This creates the condition for new structures of competition between national markets and institutions. A second mechanism of Europeanization is more related to positive integration, i.e. the formulation of new Europe-wide regulatory frameworks that underpin and expand the scope of the European market. Hard, as well as soft, law is produced in the European political arena and then transferred to and implemented in a national context. A third mechanism of Europeanization that is included in the analysis relates to the learning processes that unfold in the routinized encounter between national and European civil servants. For all mechanisms, it is expected that a number of sector-specific intervening variables will work either as contributing factors for domestic change or as barriers to change. In consequence, it is expected that there will be considerable variation in the dependent variable – the national policies, politics and polity. Some aspects may be very robust in their encounter with Europe. In other sectors, considerable change, bordering on transformation, may be detectable.

Foreign policy analysis

A second source of conceptual ideas that help to inform some of the respective chapter evaluations stems from the realms of Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), not least because elements of FPA can be employed to study, fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Europe and the nation state
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• List of abbreviations
• Preface
• 1 Introducing Denmark and the European Union
• 2 Denmark's relation to the European Union: a history of dualism and pragmatism
• 3 The Internal Market Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy: the normalization of EU policy-making in Denmark
• 4 Denmark and the Euro opt-out
• 5 Justice and home affairs: Denmark as an active differential European
• 6 A pace-setter out of sync? Danish foreign, security and defence policy and the European Union
• 7 Denmark and the Council of Ministers
• 8 Denmark and the European Commission: entering the Heart of the Union
• 9 Denmark and the European Parliament
• 10 Prospects and limits of European interest representation: the shipping and wind turbine industries
• 11 The European ‘rights revolution’ and the (non) implementation of the citizenship directive in Denmark
• 12 EU-phoria or -phobia? Danish public opinion about the EU
• 13 Public administration, civil servants and implementation
• 14 EU coordination processes in Denmark: change in order to preserve
• 15 Not quite a painful choice? Reflecting on Denmark and further European integration
• 16 A smart state handling a differentiated integration dilemma? Concluding on Denmark in the European Union
• Appendix A: the results of the Danish Parliamentary Elections 1971—2011
• Appendix B: the composition of Danish governments 1971—2011
• Bibliography
• Index