ABSTRACT
In a statement displaying an unimpeachable regard for what used to be known in British trade union circles as 'relativities', Erik Damgaard has characterised Denmark as a 'fairly complex system with rather weak minority governments and a fairly strong parliament'. I The Danish Folketing, he asserts, 'has certainly not declined in recent decades'. It might be added that in the shape of the Market Relations Committee (Folketingets markedsudvalg) , renamed the European Affairs Committee on 4 October 1994 - which mandates the negotiating stance of government ministers in the Council of Ministers and, in line with article 7:1 of the Parliamentary Standing Orders, 'co-ordinates the Folketing's handling of EU matters' - Denmark has possessed a widely admired parliamentary organ which attracts as many delegations of foreign experts to the Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen as visit the Commissariat du Plan in Paris. Most recently, moreover, the 'Danish model' served as the point of departure for the Nordic European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members2 - the Tiitinen Committee in Finland (which reported in April 1994) and the Swedish Commission of Inquiry the previous year-in their deliberation of ways of adapting existing parliamentary procedures to the contingencies of EU membership.) It is against this backdrop of the established reputation of the Market Relations Committee (MRC) and its successor, the European Affairs Committee (EAC) that the present article examines the Folketing's role in the national EU decision-making process and asks whether it could reasonably be depicted as a strong policy influencing assembly in relation to EU matters.
