Participation in NATO Key Issue in Danish Election

The government of Denmark is purposely casting Tuesday’s national election as a variation on the famous question mulled over by Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “To be or not to be?”

But the question now refers not to the Danish prince’s existence but to Denmark’s continuing participation in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--a crucial membership that has suddenly been set at odds with the country’s longtime ban on nuclear weapons.

Conservative Prime Minister Poul Schlueter, a NATO supporter, has called an early parliamentary election in the hopes of turning it into a national referendum on NATO, which Denmark helped found in 1949. But it is not clear whether his strategy in calling an early election will succeed in returning his minority government to power.

Opinion polls show that his Conservative People’s Party may increase its share of the 179 seats in the Folketing, as the Parliament is called, but probably will not gain enough to produce a solid working majority. Nine different parties are represented in the Folketing.

Still, any increase in the number of seats held by the conservative coalition will be regarded as a victory for Schlueter and an endorsement of his position on NATO.

Socialists’ Resolution

The NATO issue erupted last month in the Folketing when the opposition Socialist People’s Party managed to push through a resolution calling on the government to notify warships entering Danish waters--specifically NATO warships--of Denmark’s policy forbidding nuclear weapons on Danish territory in peacetime.

In the past, Danish governments have assumed that NATO ships would observe the 30-year-old policy, while U.S. and British commanders adhered to their rule of never confirming or denying the presence of nuclear arms on any specific warship.

The Folketing resolution was immediately criticized by other NATO governments, and Secretary of State George P. Shultz said he was “deeply distressed” by the implications of the move.

“It goes to the very heart of the meeting and interlocking nature of our mutual commitments within the NATO alliance,” Shultz said.

Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Defense Secretary George Younger went further and canceled Danish visits planned for this month by British warships. They said the resolution could impair Britain’s ability to put troops ashore in Denmark in the event of war.

Danes Shared Concerns

The U.S. and British concern was shared by Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen and Defense Minister Berndt Johan Collet, as the pair made clear in conferences with other NATO ministers in Brussels.

Schlueter decided to call the parliamentary election more than three years before it was due, a move that seemed to shake the Social Democrats, who had not expected the resolution to bring on a snap election of this sort.

Svend Auken, the Social Democratic leader, insisted in an interview that the reaction to the nuclear resolution had gotten out of hand and was being overemphasized by the government coalition.

He accused the foreign minister and the defense minister of “bad-mouthing” the Folketing in conversations and consultations with other NATO ministers.

Auken asserted that the prime minister had called the election “to victimize” the opposition parties. He accused the United States and Britain of meddling in the Danish election, a charge vigorously denied by Terence A. Todman, the U.S. ambassador to Denmark.

Basically, Auken argued, the election should not be about Denmark’s membership in NATO or its nuclear policies but about “who should run the country for the next four years.”

According to aides, Schlueter has indicated that he will modify the nuclear resolution if he is returned to power and put Denmark’s policy more in line with that of Norway, also a NATO member. In other words, Denmark would affirm that it does not want nuclear weapons in Denmark but would not question visiting NATO warship commanders as to whether that policy was being observed.

Many members of the Folketing now believe that the NATO dispute was unnecessary and unseemly--and that possibly it is more of a reflection of personal antagonism between Schlueter and Auken.

Peter Lautrup Larsen, a member of the Liberal Party, said in an interview: “The resolution itself was the result of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. It is ridiculous that such a resolution confirming government policy would lead to a national election.”

He concluded: “If we truly wanted to influence NATO, this is no way to do it. We should get back to dealing with real problems in Denmark.”