On Wednesday, Danish citizens we
nt to the polls to decide whether or not The country should scrap its defense opt-out, one of the country's opt-outs from the European Union. Polling in the run-up to the election suggested that most Danes did indeed want to scrap the opt-out and, well, that's exactly what happened. So in this article we're going to be taking a look at the referendum results, what this means for the EU's defense policy and how this will affect Danish-EU relations more generally.
So before we get into the results, a bit of background. Denmark has always been one of the more hesitant members of the EU, having negotiated various opt-outs throughout the years. The first one became apparent when Danish voters narrowly rejected the treaty of the European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, in a referendum in June 1992. This was actually the first time that a European electorate had rejected a European community or union treaty, with the debatable exception of the 1972 Norwegian EC accession referendum. Anyway, the Danish result and the narrow margin of victory that Maastricht got in France that same year made European governments increasingly wary about putting new treaty proposals up for public referendums.
John Major, for example, ignored a motion by conservative peers suggesting that he put Maastricht up for a referendum and six other countries, including Denmark, cancelled referendums on the EU's constitutional treaty in 2005, which was later repackaged as the Lisbon treaty and ratified by national governments, not local electorates. Anyway, after the Danish public rejected Maastricht, a scramble to save the European project ensued, resulting in the 1992 Edinburgh agreement. The Edinburgh agreement granted Denmark four opt-outs: the first allows the Danish kroner to be used instead of the euro; the second allows the Danish to opt out of the EU's common security and defense policies, which essentially means any EU-wide military activity; and the third provides an exemption from any EU justice or home affairs laws, which includes divorce, bankruptcy, and asylum law. Fourth originally allowed Danish citizens to keep their Danish citizenship instead of purely receiving EU citizenship, but this became irrelevant with the adoption of the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty, which made EU citizenship supplementary, effectively nullifying Denmark's opt-out.
opts-outs in europeanunion, wikipedia
Anyway, this new treaty, including all four opt-outs, was put to the Danish public in a referendum in 1993 and was subsequently approved by 56.7% of voters with an 86.5% turnout. Anyway, over the years, Denmark has occasionally wavered on its opt-outs. In 2000, the social democrat-led government called a referendum on the potential of scrapping the currency opt-out and letting the country join the eurozone. At the time, the three largest parties, the ruling social democrats and the two largest opposition parties, the Danish liberals and the conservatives, all supported joining the euro, and polling three months before the election gave the pro-euro yes vote a 10-point lead over the pro-kroner no vote. However, in the months leading up to the referendum, public sentiment swung against the euro. In part due to the fact that the euro fell 15% against the dollar in this time frame, but it was also because of general antipathy towards the incumbent government, which had been in power for eight years and would be swept out of power the following autumn.
In the end, the proposal was rejected by 53.2% of voters with a turnout of 87.6% and the Danes kept the kroner, a currency they still use today. Then in 2007, the liberal-conservative coalition promised more referendums on opt-outs, but these were put on hold due to controversy surrounding the ratification of the constitution and the Lisbon treaties. Then in 2011, a new social democrat-led coalition promised referendums on the opt-outs once again, but again they were abandoned in the wake of the eurozone debt crisis. Then in 2014, the government made a deal with the opposition on a referendum on the home and justice matters opt-out, motivated by concerns that the opt-out would force Denmark into leaving Europol. The referendum on changing the opt-out was finally held in December 2015, and despite the support of the three main parties, it was rejected by 53% of voters on a 72% turnout, forcing Denmark to leave Europol.
So you probably get the idea by this point. Since negotiating their opt-outs in the 90s, successive Danish governments have flirted with the idea of scrapping them, but the Danish political establishment has so far struggled to actually convince the Danish public. On March 6th, the three main parties supported by the social liberal party and the historically Eurocentric green left party announced that they'd be holding a referendum on June 1st on scrapping the common security and defense opt-out where all of those parties will be campaigning for yes, IE campaigning to scrap the opt-out. Denmark announced on the same day that it will increase its defense budget from 1.5 percent of GDP to the NATO target of two percent by 2033. The way, Denmark, for those of you who don't know, is actually a founding member of NATO, although it did maintain some exemptions to avoid upsetting the Soviet Union, including a ban on permanent NATO bases and nuclear deployments on their territory.
It was clear then, with both of these announcements being made on the same day, that this was in part a response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, which had reinvigorated European defense policy across the board. While Denmark doesn't actually border Russia, it's pretty close to Kaliningrad, and it does control access between the Baltic and North Sea via the Danish straits, which means it'll be heavily involved in any European conflict with Russia. Yes had a consistent lead over no in polling leading up to the referendum, which narrowed slightly in early April but widened significantly in May after the Danish foreign minister stated that eliminating the opt-out would not necessarily imply Danish participation in a future European army. Would require further treaty amendments, which would also need to be put before the Danish people for approval in yet another separate referendum.
However, polling taken in the days before the referendum gave yes a 20-point lead over no. So it didn't come as much of a surprise when it was announced that the Danes had indeed voted to scrap their opt-out. So what does this mean for Denmark? NATO will remain Denmark's primary defense alliance, but eliminating the EU's defense opt out will give the Danish more influence in forming EU defense policy in the future, making them even more likely to participate in any defense activities. 's also good news for the EU or at least those EU politicians who want an independent European defense policy, most notably Emmanuel Macron. The fact that the Danes, who are usually pretty hesitant when it comes to European-related referendum, are actually keen on an independent European defense policy suggests that the war in Ukraine has actually created a rare sense of enthusiasm across the continent, and it's a clear step towards Macron's dream of strategic autonomy.
