Getting to Know the European Union: Denmark and the Netherlands

Hosted by The Institute for Human Sciences at Boston University

A lecture in the six-part series Getting to Know the European Union: Member States in Focus presents Friis Arne Petersen, Denmark’s ambassador to the United States, and Christiaan Mark Johan Kröner, the Netherlands’ ambassador to the United States, and is moderated by Alan Berger, senior editorial writer for the Boston Globe. The series, organized by the Institute for Human Sciences at Boston University and funded by the European Union Delegation of the European Commission to the USA in Washington, D.C., addresses the European Union and its politics and institutions as they function on an individual country level.

Each ambassador describes how his country views its experiences with the European Union. Petersen discusses recent referenda, currency, and Danish apprehension about joining the EU. “We gave up national identity and sovereignty, but only to gain more influence in the way that the world works today and tomorrow,” he says. Kröner talks about the origins of the EU, which began in 1952 in Luxembourg, as the European Steel and Coal Community, founded by the Treaty of Paris and whose members were France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. He explains why the Dutch voted against the European Constitution in 2005, citing enlargement, integration problems in the Netherlands, and globalization.

Petersen and Kröner discuss the disjunction between popular opinion and that of political elites and how it affects decisions made in the EU. Each ambassador provides advice for the next U.S. president in regard to U.S. policies toward Europe.

The ambassadors answer questions from the audience about significant minorities in Denmark, policies on global climate change, the Dutch government’s promotion of the EU, and the role of the media as a representative of the people’s voice.

October 30, 2007, 6 p.m.
Photonics Center

Video length is 01:32:51.

About the speakers:
Friis Arne Petersen was chief of staff to Denmark’s foreign minister from 1986 to 1994, director of the Russia and Eastern Europe Department from 1994 to 1995, and undersecretary of state for foreign and security policy from 1995 to 1997. He served as head of the Foreign Ministry, Permanent Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and alternate for the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the European Union Council of Ministers from 1997 to 2005, when he became the Danish ambassador to the United States.

Christiaan Mark Johan Kröner joined the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1973 and has held several diplomatic positions, including ambassador-at-large and deputy director-general, public affairs, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Hague, consul-general in Munich, and deputy head of the Directorate Atlantic Cooperation and Security Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has had postings in Vienna, Accra, New Delhi, and Belgrade as well. He served as the Dutch ambassador to Israel from 1993 to 1997, to Italy from 1997 to 2001, and to France from 2001 to 2006, when he became the Dutch ambassador to the United States and permanent observer to the Organization of American States.

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