Young Danes Not So Dazzled by the Lure of the Euro

It should have been a case of preaching to the converted when Economic Affairs Minister Marianne Jelved brought her campaign to persuade Danes to adopt Europe’s common currency to 300 junior college students here preparing for careers in international business.

But as the ambassador of the pro-euro team talked interest-rate fractions and national bank interventions, eyelids drooped, gossip and giggles rippled through the audience, and young couples with orange hair and oversized shoes resumed their usual lunchtime activity of kissing in the corners.

Denmark’s Sept. 28 referendum on whether to embrace the euro may be a riveting topic in political circles and virtually the only subject in the national news. But the neck-and-neck battle has failed to instill a sense of mission among first-time voters who make up much of the up to 20% share of the undecided. And their confusion may portend several more years of Denmark clinging to its tried-and-true krone.

“I have no idea what they are talking about,” 19-year-old Linette Madsen said apologetically as she sneaked out of the auditorium halfway through Jelved’s lecture. “I’ll vote because this is the first time I am old enough, but I am going to vote no.”

Politicians and industry leaders have been crisscrossing Denmark for weeks to explain what’s at stake in this third vote on European integration since 1992, but few have been willing to put into words what the choice is really all about: surrendering fiscal authority to the greater good of a strong, united Europe or preserving Danish autonomy at the risk of isolation.

Making the euro choice relevant for Danes has been a challenge for the common currency’s proponents, especially against a backdrop of the euro’s sinking value and an economic performance in Denmark that outshines that in much of the 11-nation euro zone.

Denmark’s national currency has been pegged to that of the mark in Germany--which is one of the countries using the euro--for nearly two decades, making this country a de facto member of the European Monetary Union whether the 5.3 million Danes acknowledge that or not. As the euro rises and falls against the dollar, so does the krone.

“Part of the message from the yes side is that we are already in it and what we will gain in formally joining the euro is a seat at the table,” said Lars Bille, a political science professor at the University of Copenhagen. “We can either stay out and let the other European Union members determine economic policy or we can join and have some influence in the decision-making.”

But there is no sense of urgency for change at the moment.

“If the economy was bad, people would feel the need for action. But the economy is not just good, it’s splendid. This is great for the government but not for the pro-euro campaign,” said Michael Seidelin, political editor for the leading Copenhagen daily Politiken. “There is no sense of urgency or any need for change.”

Seidelin, who worked for nine years as his newspaper’s correspondent in Brussels, the seat of the European Union, also sees broad distrust among his countrymen of the government’s EU policy. Danes first voted against the Maastricht Treaty on European unity in 1992 but reversed themselves a year later on four conditions--first and foremost, staying out of the monetary union. In addition, Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen won reelection two years ago promising no further change in Denmark’s love-hate relationship with the alliance.

“The government never makes its real objectives clear, which is why even voters who are not nationalists don’t trust our politicians and don’t trust this whole project,” Seidelin said of the integration of Europe.

Advocates of a no vote, such as the June Movement--named for the month in which Danes voted down the Maastricht Treaty--and the nationalist Danish People’s Party, have also been on the stump. And their message that sovereignty and independence are at stake has proved much easier to get across.

“I am absolutely sure the euro will collapse or that a central government will emerge in Brussels with control over our taxation and far more power than Danes are willing to accept,” predicted Jens-Peter Bonde, head of the June Movement.

His party’s casting of the euro as a sinking ship and a formula for homogenizing Europe has been going over particularly well in these weeks when the common currency, which debuted 20 months ago at $1.17, has been trading as low as $0.85.

With the euro falling and the Danish economy in robust health, those in favor of the currency fear that this is an unpropitious time for fixing what’s not broken.

The date for the referendum was set in February, when the euro was still trading respectably against the dollar and the depths of the current oil crisis were not yet clear. It was also unforeseen then how long EU sanctions against Austria would be maintained to show disapproval of the inclusion of Joerg Haider’s far-right Freedom Party in the Vienna government--an attempt at isolation regarded warily by Danes that ended only this week and with little result.

“It is certainly not helpful that we see this slide of the euro against the dollar in these last weeks when the campaign is at its peak,” lamented Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen.

But like other pro-euro officials, Petersen emphasizes that the vote later this month, whether yea or nay, will have hardly any influence on the fate of the euro or the short-term course of Denmark’s economic upswing.

What might feel the aftershocks of the Danish vote are the euro campaigns in Sweden and Britain--the only other EU countries to voluntarily stay out of the euro at the time of its January 1999 launch. Greece didn’t qualify to join then but has since positioned itself to start using the euro next year.

“Another no vote in Denmark will kill the Swedish referendum,” Bonde said. No date has been set for the Swedish vote--also its third--but a yes in Denmark would probably prompt proponents in Stockholm to move quickly to take advantage of the momentum. Conversely, if the Danes say no, the Swedish ballot will probably come no sooner than 2003.

The Danish vote is also being watched closely in EU holdouts Norway and Iceland. Should the Danes, then the Swedes and possibly the British approve the euro, those Nordic countries might be forced to reconsider their decisions to stay out of the alliance.

However, the latest polls forecast a slightly larger vote against the euro than for it, with the Gallup Organization here reporting 45% planning to vote against it and 40% on the yes side. But with as many as 20% undecided and even some of the pro and con respondents acknowledging that they still could change their minds, no one is willing to make any predictions.

“It seems there is a tendency--not a landslide, but a slight blip--among voters planning to say no,” reported Mogens Storgaard Jakobsen, a research executive for Gallup who analyzes daily polls that the organization conducts for Danish television and the Berlingske Tidende newspaper.

“People probably think if all things are equal, they don’t need the euro,” Jakobsen surmised. “Even the threats being laid out are not tangible or credible when we are experiencing the highest growth rates in 100 years.”

Because of its currency’s link to the German mark, the only negatives for Denmark in continuing to use the krone are a slight premium on interest rates for financing exports and a possibility--not yet in evidence--that foreign investors might prefer to put their money in euro zone projects.

But analysts say those downsides are too subtle to make a difference.

Said Jakobsen: “A lot of Danes see this as a small price to pay to keep our options open.”