Dear all,
Below is a very informative summary of the Danish election to the European Parliament. It's written by a member of our Scandinavian Politics list, Karina Pedersen of Copenhagen University.
Best,
Nick Aylott.
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Dr Nicholas Aylott, research fellow (forskarassistent) Department of Political Science, Umeå University www.pol.umu.se
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be interested.
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The Danish election to the European Parliament
The overall result of the Danish election to the European Parliament is that the Social Democrats - and the former Prime Minister and former party chair Poul Nyrup Rasmussen in particular - won, the movements against European integration lost, as did the governing Liberal party.
Seven of the eight parties represented in the Danish parliament stood for the European election as did the two movements represented in the European parliament. The parties most in favour of European integration are the Social Liberals, the Liberals and the Conservatives. The Social Democrats also favour the EU whereas the Christian People's Party (which had not had a representative in the European parliament and does not seem to be getting
one) and the Socialist People's Party are sceptical supporters. Of the eight parties only one opposes European integration, and that is the (right-wing) Danish People's Party.
Besides seven of the eight parties represented in the Danish parliament, two movements - both represented in the European parliament - stood for election. The People's Movement against EU, created in 1972, is opposed to Danish membership of the European Union. The June movement, created after the referendum on the Maastricht-treaty on June 2nd 1992, works to halt further Danish integration into the EU. The overall difference between the two movements is thus that whereas the People's Movement is strongly opposed to European integration, the June Movement accepts European cooperation and tries to limit integration.
The only party represented in the Danish parliament but not standing for the European parliament is the Red-Green Alliance, which is the most left-wing party in the Danish parliament. They are opposed to the EU but instead of standing for election as a party, several members were candidates on the lists of the two movements opposing further European integration.
The Danish representatives in the European parliament are elected by a proportional electoral system where Denmark is one electoral district. The rules for nominating candidates for elections are basically the same as for national elections which means that parties (this also includes movements) that were elected to the national or European parliament in the most recent elections and who are still represented may stand for election and nominate candidates. Eight of the nine parties and movements standing for election have paired up in election pacts to increase their chances of an extra mandate. The two movements have joined forces, as have the Socialist People's Party and the Social Democrats, the Social Liberals and the Christian People's Party, and, finally, the Liberals and Conservatives.
These election pacts are of a technical nature.
The Results
There was one big winner in the Danish elections to the European parliament in 2004. This was the Social Democrats led by the former Prime Minister and former party chair Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. The Social Democrats doubled their share of the votes and went from three to five MEPs even though the total number of Danish MEPs was reduced from 16 to 14.
It was an enormous victory for Poul Nyrup Rasmussen personally. The number of votes he received exceeded most expectations. Nyrup Rasmussen got two thirds of the votes cast for the Social Democrats. Personally he got more votes than the Liberal Party (the second largest party) got in total. He also by far beat the record in number of personal votes set by former Prime Minister, Poul Schlüter, in 1994. Schlüter's personal votes amounted to around 250,000 - far less than the more than 400,000 of Nyrup Rasmussen.
There may be several explanations for the grand support of Nyrup Rasmussen.
First of all, he is well known among the electorate. As Prime Minister he performed well at the international scene, something he tried to take advantage of by calling an election shortly after September 11th 2001 but which he did not succeed with. There may also be a dash of gratitude for his time as Prime Minister in the electoral support for Nyrup Rasmussen - something that was also seen as an explanation of the electoral support for Schlüter. But Schlüter and Nyrup Rasmussen differ in that whereas the former was elected to the European Parliament as first step towards retirement, Nyrup Rasmussen is expected to be at the outset of an international career.
The movements opposing European integration and to some extent the governing Liberals were the losers in the Danish elections to the European parliament.
Whereas the European results at large points towards an increase in the support for Euro sceptics, the support of the Danish sceptics declined. The June Movement almost halved their support among the electorate (who went to the polls) and lost two out of three MEPs. The People's Movement lost some electoral support but kept their seat in the European Parliament due to their electoral pact with the June Movement.
The electoral defeat of the two movements opposing European integration shifts the balance between parties promoting European integration and parties and movements that do not. Whereas they in the former parliament were represented with almost a third of the Danish seats, they now make up only a fifth of the seats. In addition to this, the Socialist People's Party was previously represented with a Euro-sceptic MEP but now has a representative more in favour of the European integration.
The two movements opposing European integration belong, though formally not tied to any political wing, mainly to the left on the traditional left-right spectrum. Due to their loss and the moderate increase in the votes of the Danish People's Party, the opposition to the European integration has shifted a little to the right and become more bourgeois. This implies that the opposition has changed its character.
All in all, the balance between pro-integrationist parties and parties/movements against European integration shifted to the advantage of the former.
The Liberals went from 23 pct. to 19 pct. of the votes and lost two of their five MEPs. This was an unsatisfactory result for the governing party.
The Danish Elections to the European Parliament 2004
Votes Vote MEPs Change Change
2004 Share 2004 in votes in MEP
2004 from 1999 from 1999
Social Democrats 618,409 32.6 5 +16.1 +2
Social Liberals 120,473 6.4 1 -2.7 0
Conservatives 214,902 11.3 1 +2.8 0
Socialist People's P 150,518 7.9 1 +0.8 0
June Movement 171,927 9.1 1 -7.0 -2
Christian Democrats 24,284 1.3 0 -0.7 0
People's Movement 97,986 5.2 1 -2.1 0
Danish People's Party 128,789 6.8 1 +1.0 0
Liberals 366,734 19.4 3 -4.0 -2
Total 1,894,022 100 14 18.6* -2
Note: * The volatility, that is, the sum of changes for each list divided by 2.
There were minor changes in the electoral support for the rest of the parties, not in their number of MEPs. Whereas the Conservatives gained almost three per cent in electoral support, the Social Liberals lost almost three per cent. This gain and loss may very well at least partly be related.
In 1999 the Social Liberals had a well known female former member of parliament in front and the party gained a sufficient amount of votes to become represented in the European parliament. In 2004 the Social Liberals nominated a well know male member of parliament. The Conservatives, on the other hand, nominated as leading candidate a well known female member of parliament in 2004, and she is expected to have attracted both some of the votes for the Social Liberals and from the Liberals with their less well known candidates.
Turnout at the elections to the European parliament have since 1979 been:
47.8 pct., 52.4 pct., 46.2 pct., 52.9 pct. and 50.4 pct. The elections to the European parliament are in Denmark held on Sunday June 13th 2004. No other elections are held simultaneously. The most recent elections at both the national, regional and local levels were held in November 2001. Local and regional elections are to be held in November 2005 whereas national elections must be held at that time the latest. The elections to the European parliament do not compete with any major events except the European soccer championship. The turnout was expected to be higher in 2004 for several reasons: First, Sunday elections, uncommon in Denmark, are believed to increase turnout since it gives people more time for going to the election booth. Second, since this is the last day of the European elections the electorate also get to hear the result very shortly after voting. This is expected to induce the electoral participation and therefore to have a positive impact on the turnout. Thirdly, EU has grown in importance. Even though parties and MEPs complain that the coverage is insufficient it is still larger now that it was previously. Fourthly, the European election is closer to a national election than e.g. in 1999. Anyway, despite all these good reasons to turn up, the turnout rate ended up at 47.85 per cent, a fall by 2.61 per cent. So, besides discarding the above arguments for expectations for a rise in turnout one should note the extremely nice weather on the election day. I guess the electorate focused on getting the most out of that day and that did apparently not include going to the polls.
Transmission of the European results to the national level?
One needs to take great precautions when extending the European results to national politics. First of all, the turnout rate at the European election was much lower than the usual mid-80s at national elections. A large part of the electorate has thus not taken part in this election and expressed their opinion. Second, the election campaign was modest but did concern some European issues. If the campaigning had been mainly on domestic issues - or international ones like the situation in Iraq - one could with some strength argue that the electorate had evaluated the government and opposition. But other issues were covered and could therefore have had an impact on the voting behaviour.
With these precautions in mind a few words may be said about the implications for the national level. First, following the trend seen in many other places in these European elections, one could argue that the electorate expressed their dissatisfaction with the leading party in the present government, the Liberals. The Prime Minister was a leading figure in the party's campaigning and did in this way put in his stakes. On the other hand, the Liberals did worse than the opinion polls for a national election at the same time predicted, pointing towards a true European element in the European elections. The Liberals is the only party doing worse than the opinion polls. When comparing the parties' share of the votes cast for parties (excluding the two movements) it turns out that the Social Democrats and Conservatives did better than the opinions polls for a national election in June whereas the other parties did about the same.
No matter what, the Social Democrats got an electoral victory. Following their defeat at the national election in 2001, where they had to resign from government office, this must be comforting and provide them with a good portion of self confidence. It probably also comforts them, that they at the European level is the leading Danish party. So, all in all, if nothing else, this has given the Social Democrats a boost in the self confidence not only of the party leadership but also of the rank-and-file party campaigners.
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Karina Pedersen
Adjunkt, ph.d
Institut for Statskundskab
Københavns Universitet
Rosenborggade 15
1130 København K.
+45 35 32 34 16
www.polsci.ku.dk
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