After weeks of European power battle on the European Constitution the Danish government has, according to Berlingske Tidende, given up on the referendum on the 27th of September. Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen is expected to give this announcement formally at the EU-summit in Brussels Thursday.
In today’s headlines Berlingske Tidende claims that the Danes will not be voting on the constitutional treaty in September. Even though the final decision will be made during the summit in Brussels later this week, the Danish government and Prime Minister have internally given up on the plan on the referendum after the clear decline in France and Holland. Together with the fear of a Danish NO the UK´s decision on putting the treaty on stand-by has influenced the government’s decision.
According to Berlingske Tidende´s information the Prime Minister already last week used the opportunity together with Tony Blair to discus a procedure on how the EU will handle a joint postponing of the constitution.
The Danish Prime Minister´s has previous stressed that in order to execute a national referendum it is crucial that there exists a clear basic for the referendum and that it first of all is important to know if there is a constitution to vote about and to know the exact text. The Prime Minister was supported by his Swedish colleague, Göran Persson, at a Nordic/Baltic meeting in Denmark last week in Denmark. Persson is ready to stop the Swedish decision process in the “Riksdag” if not a clear and common decision is made at the summit Thursday.
In spite of numerous meetings and consultations with EU-partners the Danish government has not received any promises about the continued existence of the present version of the constitution, or suggested any reasonable way out of the crisis.
- The conversations we have had so far did not convince me that we will get a clear answer, said Foreign Minister Pers Stig Møller after a meeting with his EU-colleagues in Luxembourg.
- It is still too early for those countries having problems with the ratification of the constitution, Stig Møller said, addressing the French and Dutch government.
And it is those promises and answers to what will happen that Denmark has demanded in order to continue the national ratification, and now seem to be a general Scandinavian opinion.
Catja Gaebel