For the moment, leaving the European Union is not on the agenda for Denmark, a well-known politician said. The leader of the Euro-sceptic Danish People’s Party, Kristian Dahl, said that his party is not seeking to trigger voting on Denmark’s membership in the EU. According to his words, Denmark must try to negotiate a number of exceptions with the EU to meet its interests and only if it fails, to act radically.
“We should not leave the EU right now,” he said at a party conference on Wednesday. “We are not proposing to come out of the EU without an alternative.”
He added: “When the British have concluded an agreement with the EU, there was an alternative.”
However, there can also be a draft alternative here. A significant proportion of Swedes and Danish would prefer to be part of the “Nordic Union” between Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland rather than the European Union, according to a new study. Looking at its figures, 47 percent of the Swedes and 45 percent of the respondents would prefer their country to be in union only with Scandinavian countries.
In neighbouring Norway, only 10 percent share the opinion that the country needs to become a member of the big European family.
Dahl’s comment comes under an increasingly eurosceptic sentiment in the Scandinavian country, which has not even adopted the euro as a currency. Even more restrictive immigration policies and possible additional expenditures are on the roadmap for Denmark and this is happening in the forthcoming elections in 2019. Unemployment reaches a nine-year low of just 3.9 percent from May. The current rate of economic expansion requires around 3500 new work places each month.
However, so far the government has not taken any steps to increase the number of employees, such as making jobs for people on state aid more attractive. At the same time, the number of immigrants, both inside and outside the EU, is drastically decreasing.
Тhe People’s Party is considered to be the main driver behind the government’s refusal to accept refugees. The last change was the ban on burqas, which came into force on 1 August. Earlier this year, Denmark’s PM Lars Löke Rasmussen announced that control over the EU’s external borders is needed, while illegal migration remains a serious challenge.
The influence of the nationalist party will certainly be seen in the next legislative drafts. The opposition Social Democrats, who are currently leading in preliminary polls, have suggested they are ready for a coalition with nationalists after the 2019 elections.
