The Brief – Why Ireland and Denmark won’t leave the EU

The victory of EU bogeyman Geert Wilders and his far-right PVV party in the Dutch elections last week has prompted a proliferation of think-pieces floating various further EU exit scenarios – from ‘Nexit’ to ‘Swexit’.

In these moments, the ghost of Brexit looms large. However, there is a lesson to be learned from Ireland and Denmark, which joined the EU in 1973 alongside the United Kingdom, and where popular support for the EU appears to be enduring.

The share of people from the three countries who told Eurobarometer that their country’s EU membership was a good thing started to diverge steeply in the late 1990s, with the Danes becoming more Europhile and the British going off in the opposite direction. 

The contrasting development has been striking: When the Eurobarometer asked Europeans how optimistic they were about the future of the EU earlier this year, Ireland and Denmark took the top places, with 80% of each country’s population thinking the bloc’s future was bright.

Duly, the Berlin-based embassies of both countries decided to commemorate 50 years of EU membership with a celebratory football match against FC Bundestag, a team of German MPs, this week.

Asked for an explanation for their countries’ Europhilia, both ambassadors tell a rather utilitarian story.

“Becoming a member of the Union has allowed us to grow as a country, certainly economically, which happened partly thanks to the European cohesion funding in the beginning,” said Nicholas O’Brien, the Irish ambassador, pointing to how Ireland used to be “a poor agricultural economy” when it joined.

Denmark’s ambassador Susanne Hyldelund gave a similarly rational answer. “We joined very much based on the economic potential and the big single market” she said, adding that “the EU has delivered on that” and the Danes “warmed up to it”.

Researchers have long regarded such benefits as a powerful deterrent to Euroscepticism. But this does not tell the full story – the enduring post-Brexit economic turmoil across the Channel only underlines how much Britain used to benefit from the EU.

The Brexit debacle was the result of a perfect storm of short-term politics, the exact reasons of which are hard to disentangle, triggered by David Cameron’s decision to hold a referendum to appease his Conservative backbenchers and longer-term British disaffection with the EU, captured by the nationalist slogan ‘Take back control’. 

Yet Denmark and Ireland famously hold regular referendums on aspects of their EU membership, including treaties. They often decided against closer integration but at times also embraced it – like when the Danes voted last year to join the EU’s defence policy with a “surprisingly big majority”, in the words of Hyldelund.

Meanwhile, anyone who has ever mistakenly addressed an Irish person as British – or, God forbid, English – or holidayed in a Dannebrog-flagged wooden cabin by the Skagerrak knows how strongly both people feel about their nationality.

The solution to the conundrum: It is not despite but because of these factors that the Irish and the Danes have faith in the European project, as a prominent EU researcher once informally pointed out to the author of this article. 

Regular referendums – instead of the single British ‘put everything on the table’ car crash – have instilled a sense of ownership of the integration process, the researcher argued.

Irish people and Danes can trust that they will have their say on major decisions and the EU has paid its due by passing down ‘Danish Opt-Outs’ and ‘Irish Guarantees’.

Similarly, the bloc has promoted rather than diminished the status of Ireland and Denmark as smaller countries on the world stage. For the Irish, it has even become a vehicle to express their national pride with Ireland’s original Celtic language being an official EU language.

The nature of national identity might also play a role. Researchers found that English counties where people predominantly identified as British were less likely to vote ‘Leave’ in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Meanwhile, those who identify more prominently as English – a much more exclusive, negationist identity that cuts across class barriers, spanning both bowler-hat-wearing Spectator readers and the ‘white van men’ who fear that immigrants are after their jobs – overwhelmingly voted ‘Leave’.

Regarding the Irish identity, O’Brien noted that “it is certainly a very positive, inclusive national identity that is also about having fun and enjoying life”, an outlook that Hyldelund believes the Danish share.

However, the feeling of complementarity with the EU will be challenged as Brussels is eyeing the extension of the use of majority, rather than unanimous, voting before countries like Ukraine join the bloc, which may diminish the influence of small countries. But even here, the ambassadors signal a willingness to follow along. 

What Eurocrats and national leaders from the Netherlands to Sweden can learn from the Europhile match between Ireland and Denmark is perhaps that the more represented people feel in the integration process, the less they feel like leaving.

And also, that whatever you do in Europe, the Germans always win: in this case, 20:10.

The Roundup

EU countries and the European Parliament said on Wednesday they have reached a preliminary agreement on curbing industrial emissions, including those from intensive poultry and pig farms and from ore mines.

The Spanish presidency of the EU Council shared a revised mandate to negotiate with the European Parliament on the thorny issue of regulating foundation models under the upcoming AI law.

France’s draft national energy and climate plan (NECP), recently handed into the European Commission, fails to mention a renewable energy objective for 2030, referring instead to a “decarbonised” energy target incorporating nuclear power, contradicting the EU’s renewable energy directive.

European Commission defence experts are asking EU countries and the arms industry how it can make the latter more flexible and less dependent on third countries with ideas on mapping production capacity, setting up a one-stop shop for all, and securing budgets, according to internal documents seen by Euractiv.

Innovation is key to the digitalisation of our society. Open global technology standards, based on standard-essential patents (SEPs), are the foundation upon which companies continue to innovate and create new products and services. Without SEPs, for example, it would not be possible to make mobile phone calls, stream videos, provide up-to-date traffic information to connected cars or access remote healthcare and learning.

Advanced spyware, likely Pegasus, has been used against Serbian civil society just weeks before snap parliamentary elections, human rights organisation Amnesty International confirmed on Tuesday.

Both experts and patient associations in Spain praise the quality of treatments provided by the public health system but demand greater attention and resources put towards the difficulties posed by the multi-sectoral management required after discharge.

The European Commission tabled an update to passenger rights rules on Wednesday in a bid to prevent a repeat of the confusion and frustration experienced by passengers during the COVID-19 pandemic travel disruption.

Access to quick and accurate diagnosis and affordable drugs in Spain varies across the regions and depending on patients’ economic status.

EU countries need to see biomarker testing – an innovative form of cancer diagnostics – as an investment and address the current lack of knowledge about its benefits, the head of Cancer Patients Europe told Euractiv.

Don’t miss this week’s Green Brief: Hydrogen under the spotlight, CCS back in fashion; and the Health Brief: A new chair for the public health committee.

Look out for…

• Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski participates in second EU-Turkey high-level dialogue on agriculture, including meeting with Agriculture Minister İbrahim Yumakli, in Brussels Thursday.
• Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council meets in Brussels Thursday.
• General Affairs Council meets in Brussels Thursday.
• Commission President Ursula von der Leyen participates in COP28 UN Climate Change Conference in United Arab Emirates Friday-Saturday.

Views are the author’s

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/Nathalie Weatherald]