Danes now favor euro, poll says

COPENHAGEN

Most Danes are now willing to join the single European currency, the euro, after rejecting it two years ago, and would also favor joining a European defense force, according to a Gallup poll published June 2.

The results, published in the newspaper Berlingske Tidende, confirmed a positive Danish trend toward the euro, which was introduced in 12 European Union states on January 1.

Britain, Denmark and Sweden have declined to join the euro zone for now.

The poll, which interviewed 724 people last month, showed 60 percent now wanted to join the single currency, while 34 percent were still against the move.

Fifty-three percent favored the country joining an EU defense force with 28 percent against, and 46 percent favored legal cooperation within the EU.

The poll was published 10 years to the day after a 1992 referendum in which the Danes rejected the Maastricht Treaty creating the European Union, the successor to the European Community.

The Danes later voted in favor of Maastricht in a second referendum in May 1993 after the EU granted Denmark four special exemptions covering the euro, the EU defense force, legal cooperation and European citizenship.

The EU Treaty of Amsterdam was ratified, again by referendum, in May 1998.

But the Danes rejected the euro in a September 2000 referendum by 53.1 percent to 47 percent.

According to the latest poll, 36 percent now consider the four EU exemptions a disadvantage, 29 percent an advantage, while 35 percent are undecided.

"The exemptions make no sense today," said former Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen: "They have to be gotten rid of for a new referendum in 2003, ahead of negotiations on a new EU treaty in 2004."

Petersen resigned in December 2000 after the Danes rejected the euro, saying he could not continue defending the exemptions against his better judgment.

Denmark's present Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller and European Minister Bertel Haarder said the results of the latest poll were pleasing and encouraging, coming as they did just before Denmark is to take over the six-month presidency of the EU next month.

But asked by Berlingske Tidende, neither minister would offer any time scale for a new euro referendum.