From: mikael@udac.uu.se (Mikael Lundgren)
Subject: Re: <None>
Organization: UDAC, Uppsala University, Sweden
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 19:31:11 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.175947.1@sejnet.sunet.se> eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas) writes:
>From: eric@sejnet.sunet.se (Eric Thomas)
>In article <mikael.69.718474872@udac.uu.se>, mikael@udac.uu.se (Mikael Lundgren) writes:
>> I seem to remember something about the german constitution blocking the 
>> possibility of a referendum in Germany. Maybe someone could shed some light 
>> on this ??
>
>Well, the constitution did not seem to be an obstacle to Maastricht itself, so
>it shouldn't be an obstacle to a referendum on Maastricht ;-)

You may have a point there. Still, i'd like to hear from someone who knows 
the fact so that we can stop guessing.

>> We live in an everchanging world, if not renegotiated maybe it can be 
>> amended....
>
>My understand is that all they are willing to do is to give the Danes more time
>to implement the treaty (in much the same way the UK was given time to join the
>common currency plans).

I think they will have to do more. I agree with you that if Denmark has a 
referendum on exactly the same treaty it would really be bad taste. We can
always discuss how much the treaty has to change in order to make it possible
to have another referendum.
You may disagree on the fact that I think that a second referendum would be 
all right, but I think the Danes said no to that particular treaty, nothing 
else can be assumed from the result (off course, we can interpret the result
into meaning that the Danes do not want any further integration at all, but 
that was NOT what they voted on in that particular referendum)


>> Maybe there should be a discussion about what the Maastricht treaty should 
>> have been like in order to be more satisfactory. A constructive discussion 
>> on that issue should be very interesting.
>
>The Danes don't want a common army or a common foreign affairs policy, for
>instance. They don't want it today, and they won't want it even if they are
>given 2 more years than the others to implement it. The bottom line is that the
>treaty was simply not designed to reflect the requirements of neutral
>countries.

Hmm, you can hardly call Denmark a neutral country can you? So I fail to see
the bottom line. When you (below) mention Sweden it is a completely different
matter. 
By the way how can you be so sure that in two years the Danes will 
not have changed idea? If I remember correctely the difference between Yes 
and No was quite tiny. 

>countries. I realize that the neutrality of Sweden is a bit ridiculous in some
>aspects, but it does correspond to a reality in the sense that your average
>Swede doesn't want to send the army to the former colony of the month to fight
>this or that group of rebels trying to take over the nice dummy president who
>nicely does everything he is told. They want to send doctors to help building
>hospitals and the like. A common army led by either France or Germany is not
>quite what your average Scandinavian is after.


I agree with you that the average Swede would oppose sending troops abroad 
under the circumstances you describe. I would even dare say that a very 
large majority of Swedes share this opinion. But I also think a majority of 
Europeans would (correct me if I am wrong). When the discussion is about a 
joint army with the task to defend a European Union the matter could be 
different. I am not saying that I am in favor of a united army, i have not 
made up my mind on the matter yet. So i'll stop here, i guess Eric or 
somebody else will be more than willing to provide me with arguments.

> Eric

Ciao /Mikael
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