Danish Political Parties and European Integration

Denmark is considered to be one of the most Euroskeptical member states of the European Union (e.g. it rejected the Treaty of the European Union in 1992 and refused to adopt the euro in 2000). This article analyzes the attitudes of relevant Danish political parties towards European integration. The author of this article utilizes Nicolò Conti’s typology of political parties’ attitudes towards the European Union based on their spatial position on the political spectrum. Conti supposes that the Euroskeptical attitude (the so-called hard Euroskepticism) is mostly represented by the right- and left-wing parties, while a pro-European attitude is typical of the center and governing political parties. First, the author of this article categorizes the relevant Danish political parties on the basis of Conti’s typology. Second, the author compares their real attitudes to European integration to the assumed ones.