EU 27, Croatia and Turkey are watching: With or without the Lisbon Treaty

Research institutes from EU-27 plus Croatia and Turkey have been asked to analyse national positions on current developments in European politics, particularly, the Irish voters’ rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. This brief provides a summary of the Danish contribution to the EU-27 Watch no. 7, 2008 and concludes with a brief look to the comparative results of all the country reports.

The Irish No and the following uncertainty of the future of the Lisbon Treaty had a significant impact on the Danish opt-outs as it resulted in the postponement of the referendum plans to lift one or more of the four opt-outs. Furthermore, the positive attitude of the Danes to abolish the opt-outs seemed to have decreased and by the time of writing the report, the only opt-out that the Danes were in favour of abolishing was the defence policy opt-out. The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was thought to be one of the favourite candidates for the position as President of the European Council, but the Irish No might change the picture since his chances are believed to be related to his ability to remove the Danish opt-outs.

In the remaining member states different implications of the Irish No for the future of Europe are
discussed such as the slowdown of the process of enlargement, a two-speed EU and the communication gap between political elites and citizens. Despite these negative implications, the strong consensus to continue ratification irrespectively of the Irish No marks a significant difference to the ratification crisis of 2005.