ABSTRACT
The most obvious explanation for a division amongst party activists over questions of supranational integration is that it signified a split between nationalists and internationalists, between, on one hand, people who opposed integration because their primary goals were intrinsically predicated upon the nation state and, on the other, those whose goals were not. To the casual observer of the European issue in Nordic politics, there would seem to be a reasonably clear division in the respective party systems between left and right. The radical left parties no longer call themselves communist, though they remain generally Eurosceptical; and if there are radical, reformist elements within the social democratic parties, they are inclined much more towards liberalism than towards Marxism. In other European countries, it has usually been the supporters of free trade who have been in favour of European integration and the opponents who have been more sceptical.
