EU-critical Network of Socialliberals
(Radikalt EU-kritisk Netværk)
The official EU-policy of Det Radikale Venstre is positive towards an EU developed as cooperation among sovereign states. However, there is a minority of the members of the party who feel that centralization of power in the EU has gone far enough. A group of these formed 'Radikalt EU-kritisk Netværk' (The EU-critical network of Det Radikale Venstre) in June 1997.
The purpose of the network is to create debate within Det Radikale Venstre about EU-related topics on a basis of the fundamental principles of the party: democracy and international cooperation. The network wants 'less union' and stresses that the cooperation in Europe should be among sovereign states. This also means that the member states should not, as they do now, irreversibly 'pool' ever more of their sovereignty, thereby all the time coming closer to 'United States of Europe'.
In Denmark we have had a number of referendums on EU-questions. After the Danish No to the Maastricht-treaty in June 1992, Folketinget (the Danish Parliament) decided to give state money to efforts of informing the public about EU-related questions. A committee of five independent persons administers this money, and one of the rules is, that half of it is given to the political parties and the 'movements' working with EU-questions.
Det Radikale Venstre was the only party to give some of its share of the money to the minority in the party, 'Radikalt EU-kritisk Netværk'(REUN) at the referendum on the Amsterdam-treaty. In the campaign leading up to the referendum on Denmark joining the EMU, Det Radikale Venstre was the first party to give money to its minority, but later the socialdemocrats have decided to do the same this time.
Also Det Radikale Venstre has a link on its homepage to the homepage of REUN on www.radikaleukritik.dk and vice versa of course.
At the latest annual meeting in the party 27% of the delegates opposed the resolution calling for Denmark joining the EMU. In REUN we regard this as a good basis for our campaign leading up to the referendum on September 28th.
Hanne Jakobsen
June 2000
hanne.jakobsen@po.ia.dk