EU Referendum questions: The Danish perspective
Cambridge Centre for European Legal Studies (CELS) Podcast
Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge
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🗓️ 31 May 2016
⏱️ 5 minutes
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Summary
In this ongoing series of short recordings, academics from the University of Cambridge and beyond shed light on the key issues to be considered in the run up to the upcoming referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union.
This interview features Professor Morten Broberg, Professor of International Development Law at the University of Copenhagen and visitor at the LCIL, who considers the Danish perspective on the referendum. Reflecting on his experiences as a Danish civil servant, Professor Broberg describes the UK's position in EU negotiations, and how it might be affected by the decision made on 23rd June.
This series has been created by the Centre for European Legal Studies (CELS). For more information visit http://www.cels.law.cam.ac.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Okay, so I'm here with Martin Broberg, who's Professor of International Development Law at the University of Copenhagen. |
| 0:13.0 | He's also a visiting scholar here at the Lauter Park Centre in Cambridge, and before becoming a professor was also a civil servant. |
| 0:21.6 | How would you describe British influence drawing on your experiences of being a civil servant within the EU? |
| 0:28.6 | Right. The European Union has these 28 member states and there are quite big differences. |
| 0:35.6 | The Danish perspective is very much like the British one. |
| 0:39.7 | So when I was working in the civil service in Denmark |
| 0:42.3 | for the Minister of Justice and negotiating on behalf of Denmark, |
| 0:45.7 | we would normally follow the British lead. |
| 0:48.0 | And in this regard, it's really important to be aware |
| 0:51.3 | that the British are really punching, you might say, |
| 0:53.7 | about its weight. |
| 0:55.0 | Britain is one for three major member states and the same time Britain is more stronger than the other |
| 1:01.0 | main member states. So what I found surprising was that the British Civil Service, Whitehall, |
| 1:09.0 | had not only the resources, the manpower, but also the |
| 1:12.9 | skills to really run and drive forward the negotiations. |
| 1:17.6 | Two, in the interest of the British, but also, of course, as we were alike, in interest, |
| 1:24.4 | in the interest of the Danes, the Swedes and also the Finns. So we would normally follow the British whenever there was something coming up. |
| 1:32.3 | And it was not so that you had a fight between the member states. |
| 1:38.3 | You would find that the British would drive the negotiations and the opponent would very often be the Commission. So we had this very |
| 1:45.4 | reluctant British, very reluctant Danish perspective on the number of issues and we |
| 1:50.6 | would find that the outcome was very much be what the British had wanted. And I |
| 1:56.7 | think that is important also from a Danish perspective. |
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