"EU: A challenge to Danish policy and politics - an attempt to pick up the gauntlet"

Ever since Denmark became a member of the European Economic Cooperation in 1973, the Danish EC/EU membership and the European integration-process have been issues for intense discussions, periodically stimulated by the several Danish referenda about EU matters. Due to EU membership, key institutions in the Danish political system have been put under a continuing pressure to adapt to a new political environment. This article will focus upon the adaptations of the Danish political institutions to Danish EU membership. Key institutions include the Parliament (the Folketing), the government, the state bureaucracy and the political parties. Special emphasis will be put partly on questions concerning parliamentary control of the government in EU matters and partly upon new orientations of the public debate within and outside the political parties. A significant trend is that the distinction between domestic and foreign policy is getting still more blurred, which only partly is reflected in the Danish EU-decision making procedures. Finally a model for a new parliamentary strategy will be presented and discussed; a model which goes beyond the pure national scope and includes closer cooperation between the national parliaments within the EU member states and the European Parliament.