June Movement
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The June Movement (Danish: JuniBevægelsen) is a Danish eurosceptic political organisation founded 23 August 1992. It takes its name from the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty that took place in Denmark in June of that year.
The June Movement acknowledges Denmark's membership of the European Union, but opposes the process of tighter European integration, and in general the movement wants the EU to deal with only cross-border issues such as environmental and trade policies. The movement participates in elections for the European Parliament, but neither in local elections, nor in the elections for the Folketing.
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[edit] History
The June Movement was founded at a conference on Christiansborg on 23 August 1992. Its immediate predecessors were Danmark 92 and a group of members of People's Movement against the EU. The three original spokespersons were Drude Dahlerup and Niels I. Meyer — both from Danmark 92 — and Jens Peter Bonde from the People's Movement.
At the end of 1992, three of the four representatives of the People's Movement in the European Parliament (Jens-Peter Bonde, Birgit Bjørnvig og Ulla Sandbæk) decided to represent the June Movement for the rest of the election term.
Besides members of Danmark 92 and the People's Movement, the June Movement also attracted a significant number of members among people who previously had not been politically active and among the established parties. Beyond that, the movement attracted some younger politicians and activists from the now-defunct youth organization Unge Mod Unionen, including former candidates for the European Parliament and members of the leadership.
The movement recommended voting no at the EU referendums in 1993, 1998 and 2000. Likewise, the movement recommended rejecting the European constitution as they considered it to be undemocratic and to introduce too much central control.
Between 1999 and 2004, they held three of the sixteen Danish seats in the European Parliament. By the 2004 elections, however, support had fallen and only one MEP, Jens-Peter Bonde, was re-elected.
[edit] Policy and organisation
The organisation claims to be politically neither left nor right. In the European Parliament, however, it is part of the Independence and Democracy Group that includes United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and Georgios Karatzaferis. In 2005 a number of prominent members of the Movement left because of these alliances.
In general the movement wants the EU to deal with only cross-border issues such as environmental and trade policies. It proposes a reversed form of the EU's principle of subsidiarity, meaning that it wants the EU to handle issues only when ordered to do so by the member countries.
Among its more recent proposals for democratic reforms of the EU has been to let the European commissioners be elected nationally, by the electorate. This is meant to offer more debate on EU legislation as well as to bring in more democracy to the EU.
The organisation is run by a board, elected annually by participants of the Annual General Meeting. There is a gender quota system meaning that the board must have an even distribution of men and women. The board includes the MEP Jens-Peter Bonde, and is headed by its chairman, Hanne Dahl. Other members of the board include former MEPs Ulla Sandbæk and Bent Hindrup Andersen (also a former MP).
Traditionally the June Movement has relations with political organisations working with the EU and/or democracy in most EU countries, as well as in non-member states. It has a Swedish sister party, the Junilistan, which holds three seats in the European Parliament. Slovenia is the third EU country home to a June Movement; although this party did not run in the 2004 elections, it plans to do so in 2009. The Slovenians use the same party symbols as the Danish party.
The symbol of the movement is the strawberry, which in Denmark is typically associated with summer and the month of June.
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