dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

One thing I found out about Denmark in 1993. The Maastricht Treaty (white paper on denmark) was signed in 1992.

Police shoot 11 in Copenhagen as anti-Maastricht demonstrators riot after the result

Thu 20 May 1993 10.47 BST

First published on Thu 20 May 1993 10.47 BST

Leaders of the European Community began preparing yesterday for tussles over monetary union and strengthening EC powers now possible after the Danish decision on Tuesday to accept their revised version of the Maastricht treaty.

Denmark 's verdict - by a majority of 57 to 43 per cent - triggered tax and interest rate cuts in Copenhagen.

But it also triggered riots in the capital, described as the worst in Denmark 's peacetime history. The Danish police acknowledged shooting 11 anti-Maastricht demonstrators during rioting in the Noerrebro district after the referendum result was declared. They said they fired to prevent an injured colleague being stoned to death.

A police spokesman said the 11 wounded were not in a critical condition and that 26 officers had also been injured.

The Danish verdict was welcomed by heads of government. 'The European train will travel on without any stops,' Chancellor Kohl of Germany said. France's President Mitterrand said: 'This helps to clear the way to a Europe called upon to play a major role in the stability, peace and prosperity of our continent.'

But although there was no sudden outburst of federalist aspiration after months of trying to avoid scaring the Danes, arguments about the future started to take shape.

Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, said in Paris the 'first priority' was to convince Britain to come back into the exchange rate mechanism (ERM). But John Major said in London: 'We are not going back into an unreformed ERM. The conditions for considering re-entry, let alone re-entering, do not apply at the moment and in my judgment are unlikely to apply for some time in the future.'

Willy Claes, the Belgian foreign minister, whose country takes over the EC presidency on July 1, questioned the financial targets set at Maastricht to prepare member states for monetary union and a single currency.

After his government announced a new energy tax to fund a reduction in employers' national insurance contributions by putting a pound on the price of a litre of petrol, he raised doubts about the possibility of reaching the required reduction in government borrowing without worsening recession and unemployment.

'I really believe that if recession is still there in 1993 and 1994, and if all member states face serious budget deficits, we have to discuss the convergence criteria,' he said.

A spokesman for Jacques Delors suggested there was no need to change the criteria. He pointed to a part of the Maastricht text which allows the 12 governments to agree to flexible interpretation.

However, such latitude may not be acceptable to the Germans and these arguments are likely to be taken up at an informal meeting of EC finance ministers in Denmark on Saturday.

There were also early flashes of the debate about the next stage of EC reform which is due to culminate in an inter-governmental conference in 1996.

Mr Juppe said the EC would no longer be able to function as it does now if it expands to admit the Nordic countries.

'We have to democratise community institutions to make sure that European citizens are more involved,' he said.

Wilfried Martens, the former Belgian prime minister who is president of the grouping of EC Christian Democrat parties, hoped changes in the union treaty would be agreed at the inter-governmental conference.

He said there should be 'bridges' built between the three 'pillars' of Maastricht, implying that community institutions should get more influence on foreign policy and justice, which Britain insisted should be handled by governments.

The governments of Finland, Norway and Sweden said they believed the Danish vote would speed up their own efforts to join the EC.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/1993/may/20/eu.politics