Denmark in Nordic Cooperation: Leader, Player, Sceptic?

Denmark's modern story of using institutions for its protection also has some specific quirks, starting with joining the European Union (EU) more than twenty years earlier than any other Nordic state.1 Despite this, it has placed more reservations on its Union membership than Sweden or Finland, with four major opt-outs dating from 1992.2 One of these exempts Denmark from at least the military aspects of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy, to which its non-NATO neighbours Sweden and Finland are strongly attached.3 The explanation lies partly in Denmark's overriding loyalty to NATO, where it caused ructions as a 'footnote' country earlier in the Cold War but since the 1990s has been one of the USA's most consistent supporters.4 Denmark's Atlanticist' strategic vision is in turn linked to the fact that it is the only Nordic state ever to have owned extensive territories beyond the European continent,5 and it still has sovereignty over Greenland and the Faroe Islands. In the last three years, governments with a platform of demanding greater autonomy from Copenhagen have been elected in both the Faroes and Greenland.8 It would be odd if these singularities did not impact on Denmark's approach to Nordic Cooperation, a voluntary regional process that has developed over more than six decades to touch upon virtually every field of governance.9 The Danes were very active in the formative years - the early 1950s - as part of their input to shaping the region's post-war environment, where Nordic togetherness balanced and complemented the entry of the three western Nordic states into NATO.