Danes stalled by legal challenge to Maastricht

Date: 19/09/1996

By Ole Ryborg

FEARS are growing that a legal challenge by Danish Eurosceptics to their country's ratification of the Maastricht Treaty could drag on until 1999.

This could mean a delay of up to two years before Denmark can begin the process of approving the new treaty which emerges from the current round of Intergovernmental Conference negotiations.

The case has been brought by a group of Danish Eurosceptics who claim that ratification of the Maastricht Treaty was a breach of Denmark's constitution.

The Copenhagen government, which originally tried to prevent the case from going ahead, hopes that it will complete its passage through the Danish courts by the end of 1997. But those on both sides of the argument agree that the potential for either party to use delaying tactics to drag the process out is enormous. Ole Krarup, an MEP in the Europe of Nations Group and professor of law who is leading the legal challenge, has suggested it will not be over before late 1998 or 1999.

A question mark remains over whether the Danish government will have to wait until after the court case to ratify the revised treaty which emerges from the IGC.

But one Danish official told European Voice this week that no one in the government's legal services would agree to the ratification process being completed until a final verdict had been delivered.