Following the publication of contradictory opinion polls, there is deepening uncertainty about the result of Thursday's referendum on Danish participation in the single European currency.
The Yes campaign moved ahead of the No lobby in a poll conducted for the newspaper Politiken. This was the first time in two weeks that the daily showed the pro-euro campaign, at 45 per cent, leading the No group, at 43 per cent. On Friday, the paper showed the anti-euro lobby ahead by 10 percentage points.
Two other surveys published yesterday put the No camp in front: a Gallup poll gave the No side 46 per cent, as against 42 per cent voting Yes. The No lobby was ahead by a wide margin in a poll carried out for the television station TV2, which had 50 per cent opposed to the euro and 42 per cent in favour.
Since they joined the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union, in 1973, the Danes have been reluctant participants in the project for European integration at the political level, because of fairly widespread concerns that Denmark would only have secondclass status in the decision-making process in a federal Europe.
A poll in the financial daily Boersen showed 57 per cent of Danes believed a Yes would be a vote in favour of political union and 53 per cent believed membership of the euro zone would result in decision-making powers moving further away from the people and their elected representatives.
The Danish parliament, the Folketing, held an open day yesterday where members of the public were invited to discuss the issues with political parties and to inspect the literature from the opposing camps.
Mr Claus Larsen-Jensen, Social Democratic member of parliament and a leading figure in the Yes campaign, said television debates between now and polling day could be crucial to the result. He pointed out that the Danish currency was already linked in practice to the euro zone and the question for voters was: "Do you want a passive or an active membership? Do you want to take command of a big ship with others or just sail behind?"
Although the fall of the euro on currency markets had been used by the No camp, "the success of the euro is not a question of the exchange rate to the dollar but that it is creating stability between the participating countries", he said. There was no question of loss of national identity: "We are still Danes and the Germans are still Germans."
Two broad-based anti-euro coalitions, the pro-withdrawal People's Movement and the more pragmatic June Movement held a joint news conference to complain about media bias in favour of the Yes campaign. Prof Ole Krarup of the People's Movement said his organisation would be pursuing a case for impartiality by the state in the conduct of referendums and seeking a ruling similar to the McKenna judgment in Ireland which laid down strict guidelines in this regard.
Prof Drude Dahlerup of the June Movement said that out of 36 newspapers in Denmark, 32 were unequivocally on the Yes side and only one of the remaining four took a firm anti-euro stance. She said the McKenna case "has been a great inspiration for us".
A survey of press coverage conducted by the political magazine Mandag Morgen assessed coverage in seven national newspapers as generous to the No side, given that it received roughly half the space allocation despite having less than a quarter of the seats in the country's parliament.