It is an unusual and even disconcerting experience to be in a country which is having a thorough debate on its relationship with the European Union. In Ireland, apart from some recent pronouncements by members of the Government, there has been very little debate and it often seemed that there was a fear of discussion in case the public arrived at the wrong conclusions.
In Denmark this week, they even went so far as to open up the parliament and invite the people in to meet the politicians to discuss the issues they will be voting on tomorrow. The relaxed pace of life in Denmark disguises the fact that this is an economically successful and even dynamic country. The Yes parties in the referendum campaign have been warning of incipient economic decline if their proposal is rejected. The No people respond that the economy is doing fine and will continue to prosper outside the euro zone.
Like Ireland, Denmark is a small country with an internationalised economy. A declining proportion of the workforce is involved in agriculture. It has a bigger and more powerful neighbour next door and its economy is highly susceptible to developments abroad.
Like us, the country is in many ways at the mercy of events elsewhere, but its ability to influence those events is limited. Hence its early membership of the United Nations, NATO and the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. However, Danish participation in the EU has been characterised by constant political tension. The Danes take sovereignty seriously and they are too rich for their concerns to be bought off with grants from Brussels.
Whereas many in Ireland would accept that the EU contributed to the raising of our living standards, many Danes fear that a poorer quality of life will be one of the consequences of agreeing to join the single currency.
Denmark is very proud of its welfare state with its generous health and social security benefits funded through high levels of taxation. One of the most potent arguments of the No camp is that joining the euro will strengthen the hand of bureaucrats in Brussels who would prefer to see pensions, for example, being funded on the basis of personal insurance rather than from the tax system. From the moment you board the flight to Copenhagen at Dublin Airport you can see that this is a population that is past the first flush of youth. The workforce is greying and it is not clear that there will be enough young workers coming forward to pay the taxes that finance their parents' pensions.
When I put the concerns about the welfare state to Denmark's Finance Minister, Mr Mogens Lykketoft, he said the EU had "no competence", i.e., no authority, to roll back his country's welfare state. "There will be no changes in that," he insisted. But joining the euro would make for a better and more stable economy to underpin welfare provisions. The arguments from the Yes side have found a more sympathetic hearing among male than female voters, according to the opinion polls. Talking to reporters at the Folketing (Parliament) yesterday, the Interior Minister, Ms Karen Jespersen, felt the difference in perception might be because more women than men work in the welfare sector, especially hospitals, childcare and care for the elderly, whereas men were more likely to work in the private sector and to witness the connection between the overall health of the economy and the condition of their own firm.
Issues of economic democracy are at the heart of the concerns raised by Mr Holger K. Nielsen, leader of the Socialist People's Party, the fourth largest party in the Folketing. Although generally a supporter of the government from outside, Mr Nielsen has been a leading figure in the No campaign.
"When we say No, it is very much because of democracy," Mr Nielsen said. The democratic superstructure has not been put in place by the EU to cope with "this very ambitious project" of a common currency. "You have no real European democracy right now." He forecast it would take about 30 or 40 years to create a "democratic culture" in the EU. On the wall behind Mr Nielsen there was a large map of the world, but Denmark was only visible because someone had stuck a pin with a little red-and-white flag in the right place.
Ireland too, could barely be made out and it was a telling reminder of how small and vulnerable both countries are in the general scheme of things. The Danish referendum campaign can be seen as another chapter in the growing international debate on globalisation, with European integration as one of the components. Whether Denmark decides to play on the team or stay on the sidelines because it doesn't like the rules, there is no doubt that the game will continue.
