Danes have rejected a government proposal to deepen the EU member’s participation in the bloc’s justice cooperation, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the prime minister, has said.
“It is a clear no ... I have full respect for the Danes’ decision,” he said at a press conference following Thursday’s referendum. Lokke Rasmussen had campaigned for the yes side which advocated international coordination in the fight against cross-border crime, including violent extremism.
The no camp was led by the anti-EU, anti-immigration Danish People’s party (DPP) which believes dropping Denmark’s justice opt-out would have given too much power to Brussels and lead to increased levels of immigration.
Projections on Denmark’s two main television stations based on nearly all the votes counted showed 53% wanted to keep the 1992 opt-out. Turnout was about 72%, the DR and TV2 channels said.
“Danes are saying yes to cooperation but no to relinquishing more sovereignty to Brussels,” said Kristian Thulesen Dahl, the Danish People’s party leader and one of the no side’s most prominent figures. “What a fantastic evening,” he added.
Loekke Rasmussen said he now would have talks with European council president Donald Tusk and European commission president Jean-Claude Juncker aimed at reaching so-called parallel agreements that would allow Denmark to continue cooperation with Europol, among others.
During the two-week campaign, both sides called for being part of Europol – either directly, as the government suggested, or through parallel agreements, as advocated by the no side. The latter means Danes find themselves on the sidelines of the EU-wide police agency with no say in decision-making, like non-EU neighbours Norway and Iceland.
Last week, the 28-member bloc changed the role of the European police agency, including banning opt-outs from EU justice policies for full members.
The pro-EU centre-right government had argued that ending the opt-out would give Danes more say within the bloc, while opponents claimed the opposite would happen and that Danes would lose even more sovereignty to Brussels.
If Thursday’s referendum results in continuing the opt-out, Henning Soerensen, a lecturer in EU law at the University of Southern Denmark, fears a new agreement to rejoin Europol “could take years”.
Danes “won’t have immediate access to Europol registers on foreign fighters in Syria, criminal motorbike gangs, etc.,” he said. “Basically, it’s a matter of what relation Denmark wants with the EU – inside or outside.”
The vote comes three weeks after the deadly Paris attacks, reviving fears in the small Scandinavian country where officials say several terrorist attacks have been thwarted since the 2005 publishing of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that caused protests in Muslim countries. In February, a gunman killed two people and wounded five in attacks on a free-speech event at Copenhagen’s main synagogue.
The government had said that whichever way the vote went the country’s immigration policy would not be affected. Unlike Germany and Sweden, Denmark has not seen a recent surge in migrant numbers, chiefly because of its asylum rules, considered among the strictest in Europe.
