The most important trend in the Danish party system over the 1990s and 2000s was the collapse in support for the small centrist parties: the Centre party, Social Liberals, and the Conservative People’s Party.455 The Liberals and far-right Danish People’s Party were the main beneficiaries of this and increased their representation in the Folketinget.
This had the effect of successive Danish governments since 2001 being of a right-wing orientation. This development was important, as in contrast to previous centre-right administrations, these governments did not need the ‘calming’ votes of centre- or left-wing parties to get laws passed. The Liberal-led post-2001 governments relied on the votes of the non-government Danish People’s Party to get legislation passed. Such legislation included increased restriction on immigration and the rights of asylum seekers, in addition to the first programme of sustained tax cuts in modern Danish history.
Parties of the left and centre left were placed in a position where they had very little say in how policy was formed, a most unusual situation in post–war Danish politics and for these parties in particular. Europe was one of the few policy areas where the left wing opposition still had a say in government policy.456 Parliamentary consensus on Danish relations with Europe was exemplified by the powerful European Affairs Committee.
One of the most powerful committees in EU Parliaments, it had the power to dictate EU negotiating positions to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.457 The committee had been given these powers so that European policy would be formed in a consensual manner, to
455 Bille, ‘Political Data in 2005: Denmark’, p. 1088.
456 The other being the powerful Finance committee, which oversees the budget.
457 Bergman, ‘National Parliaments and EU Affairs Committees’, p. 378.
178
jointly confer legitimacy on it and also (perhaps more importantly) to calm internal party dissent on Europe given, that Eurosceptic voices had a say in policy formation.458
These developments at the national level had forced the left in Denmark to re-evaluate their European policy. Two former party leaders, Holger K. Nielsen of the Socialist People’s Party and Mogens Lykketoft of the Social Democrats, helped to direct their parties to a more pro-EU position by arguing to party members and officials that the consensus policy of the EU was the only restraining force on a right-wing Danish government.459 For left-wing parties it made no sense to argue in favour of more sovereignty for the national government, as the government was instituting a series of policies diametrically opposed to left-wing interests. For the Socialist People’s Party and Social Democrats in particular, common EU policies on asylum-seekers’ rights and workers’ rights were to the left of what the Danish government was proposing. Closer Danish co-operation with the EU in this area was put forward as a ‘calming’ influence on the ‘extreme’ right-wing policies of the government. With the dramatic shift in the Danish electorate to right-wing parties, the traditional Danish government model of policy consensus across the political spectrum disappeared. For left-wing parties, the only way for them to achieve influence on policy was to increase Danish participation in the EU, as they believed it would force the Danish government into holding more moderate positions.
Electoral shifts were replicated at the European Parliament level also as voters moved away from the Eurosceptic June Movement and People’s Movement, as shown in Table 5.1. The combined vote share of the two was at its highest in 1994, with 25% of all European Parliament votes, but fell to 14% in 2009. This left the June Movement without an MEP (in September 2009 it was wound up) and the People’s Movement with one MEP.460 This compares with the increasing vote share for the pro-EU Socialist People’s Party (up from one seat in 1999 to two in 2009) and the Social Democrats (up from three
458 Ibid.
459 Interview with Drude Dahlerup, Founder, former EU referendums campaign director June Movement, 2nd September 2009 Interview with Drude Dahlerup, Founder, former EU referendums campaign director June Movement, 2nd September 2009; Interview with Mogens Lykketoft, Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs 2000-1 and leader of the Social Democrats 2002-5, 15th September 2009.
460 European Parliament, EP Elections Results 2009.
179
in 1999 to four in 2009).461 The pro-European left was not the only beneficiary of these shifts in voting patterns, as the largest Eurosceptic party at European Parliament 2009 elections became the Danish People’s Party with two seats. By 2009 the most successful form of Euroscepticism in Denmark came to be associated with the far right and not the hard left as represented by the electoral decline of the People’s Movement and the dissolution of the June Movement showed.462
Table 5.1 Danish European parliamentary results by % vote and seat numbers Social - accessed 6th June 2010. N/A, refers to party not being in existence at the time of
election.
The shift in the party system from centrist to right partly explains this situation.
As Euroscepticism became associated with the radical right in Danish politics, Socialist People’s Party and Social Democrat members drifted away from the People’s Movement and the June Movement as their parties dealt with the European issue. As with the UK case in Chapter Three, Denmark confirms the Hooghe-Marks model in the evolution of Euroscepticism from being based in the political left to the right in line with the progress of European integration. The specificities of the Danish party system with regard to European integration meant that the changes affected by this shift were more dramatic
461 Ibid.
462 Interview with Margarethe Auken, MEP for the Socialist People’s Party, 13th September 2009.
180
than those in the UK. Hooghe and Marks were unsure of how this change would affect domestic party competition but in the Danish case its effect was to removed the support for the two EPMs.463