As the European elections draw near, a report by Altinget Research has revealed that more than a third of the laws passed by parliament in 2012 and 13 were at some level influenced by the European Union.
The researchers studied the official comments that accompanied every law, which revealed that 76 of the 224 laws passed were influenced by the EU. And that could be the tip of the iceberg.
“It’s not surprising that the report shows that a third of the laws are EU-influenced,” Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen, a political science professor at the University of Copenhagen, told Altinget.
“But one must be aware that counting [in this way] doesn’t catch everything.”
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Climate and Food
Martinsen went on to state that much of the EU’s influence actually occurs via initiatives that have a direct effect on the national administrative practice and do not require a law change.
Altinget’s research also found that, aside from the 76 EU-influenced laws, there were a number of laws that were partly influenced by the EU.
“The report shows that the EU influence is broad and considerable, but it also shows that it does not make parliament completely redundant, which is often portrayed in public debate,” Martinsen said.
Close to 80 percent of the laws passed by the Danish Climate and Energy Ministry and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food were influenced by the EU, while just 15 percent of the laws passed by the Social and Integration Ministry were influenced.
