DENMARK: EUROPEAN SINGLE CURRENCY VOTE

Описание: (27 Sep 2000) Danish/Nat

Danish supporters and opponents of the euro have, on Wednesday, been launching a last-minute push for votes in Thursday's referendum on whether to adopt the European Union's common currency.

Polls published on the eve of the vote showed the outcome remained unpredictable.

Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen doing a last-minute walkabout before Thursday's referendum.

The Social Democratic-led government strongly favours replacing the 125-year-old Danish krone, but the latest polls show the referendum remains too close to call.

A Gallup poll on Wednesday indicated that 47 percent of more than a thousand people interviewed would vote no, while 41 percent would say yes and 12 percent had not made up their mind.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"It's very close in the last hour or two, as we have seen before in referendums in my country, and our temperament and our way of doing things is to work until midnight today, and then tomorrow it will be the ordinary citizens' say. They will decide, they know how to vote, that's how it is."
SUPER CAPTION: Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen

Supporters say a rejection will leave Denmark with little influence on major fiscal and monetary decisions made by the 11-member euro zone within the E-U.

Many opponents see E-U membership as an erosion of Danish sovereignty, as more and more powers are ceded to E-U headquarters in Brussels.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"What the European Central Bank want to change is we need more power, we need more power to the Euro, to take part in a coordinated tax policy, coordinated welfare policy, and that's exactly what the Danes don't want."
SUPER CAPTION: Peter Skaarup, Danish People's Party

The euro's steady slide against the dollar - 27 percent since it was introduced into world trade in January 1999 - doesn't help the 'yes' camp.

Many here say they supported Danish membership of the E-U, but that adopting the Euro is going too far.

SOUNDBITE: (Danish)
"In the previous years, I always voted "yes" for the EU, but this time I think it is too much. I can't see the meaning of it, so they have not convinced me yet."
SUPER CAPTION: Vox Pop

SOUNDBITE: (Danish)
"We've got to be in it, we've got to have something to say in this, we don't just have to follow just what they are saying, we should have something to say too."
SUPER CAPTION: Vox Pop

Little Denmark by itself may not matter all that much in the big picture of a drive for continental unity.

Its economy is small alongside the big Euro-boys, France, Germany and Italy.

But its vote is being closely watched by other powerful neighbors, Britain and Sweden, both of which have opted out of the euro for now.

They too will have to hold referendums at some point, and a 'no' vote in Denmark is sure to invigorate the anti-euro campaigns elsewhere.

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