June Movement

From Free net encyclopedia

Template:Politics of Denmark The June Movement (Danish: JuniBevægelsen) is a Danish euro-sceptic political organisation that was founded in August 1992. It takes its name from the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty that took place in Denmark in the June of that year.

The organisation claims to be neither to the political left or right. However in the European Parliament it is part of the Independence and Democracy Group which includes UKIP and Georgios Karatzaferis. In 2005 a number of prominent members of the Movement left because of these alliances.

In general the movement only wants the EU to deal with cross-border issues such as environmental and trade policies. It proposes a reversed form of the "principle of subsidiarity" of the EU, meaning that it only wants the EU to handle issues 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 bringing in more democracy to the EU.

Between 1999 and 2004, they held 3 out of 16 Danish seats in the European Parliament. However by the 2004 elections support had fallen to the point where they only got one MEP Jens-Peter Bonde re-elected. The People's Movement also got one member re-elected.

The organisation is run by a board, elected annualy by the participants of the Annual General meeting. There is a gender quota system meaning that there most always be an even distribution of men and women on the board. The Board includes the MEP Jens-Peter Bonde, and is headed by the Chairman of the Board, Hanne Dahl. Other members of the Board includes former MEP's Ulla Sandbæk and Bent Hindrup Andersen (who is 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, who holds 3 seats in the European Parliament. Slovenia is the third EU country home to a June Movement, though this party did not run for the 2004 EP elections, but plans on doing so in 2009. The Slovenians even use the same symbols as the Danish mother party.

The symbol of the movement, is the strawberry, which in Denmark typically associated with summer and the month of June.

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