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The
Danish Referendum on the Euro Could Change the Nature of
Northern Europe
By JONATHAN
POWER
August 30, 2000
COPENHAGEN - Who can get excited about a
bridge? But if it were just a bridge it would have been
built a long time ago. This bridge that links northern
Europe with the Scandinavian land mass is a political
statement, almost as powerful, if not quite, as the
creation of the Euro, the single currency, to the south.
Indeed, a Scandinavian decision to accede to membership
of the Euro should by rights follow as a logical next
step. That both Denmark, which votes on the issue next
month and Sweden, the two mother countries of the bridge,
have serious reservations about joining the Euro is, in
modern dress, the debate they had about building the
bridge, a debate that consumed over a century of argument
and discussion.
But the bridge is now there, opened last month, a
graceful object crossing 17 kilometers of the sound that
adjoins the Baltic sea. The Danish referendum to be held
many of on September 28 is said by commentators here to
hang in the balance. Although the government, most of
business, many of the unions and much of the media are
all for it, a good chunk of Danish public opinion hangs
back- and just as it did over the bridge- worries that
tiny Denmark with all its virtues of a sound economy and
a benign welfare state, not to mention a precious
self-identity, will get swallowed up by German truck
traffic racing through to the Scandinavian north and by
Brussels-based federalists who are out to subsume this
tiny country into some Franco-German dominated political
union where their concerns and priorities will be simply
out voted and ignored.
Yet, with the emerging Baltic behind it and Europe in
front of it, it will be a brave Dane (and later a Swede)
who will decide not to vote yes. Indeed, it is Denmark,
Sweden and Finland who are the instigators of the
so-called "Baltic buzz" that is resurrecting the medieval
Hanseatic league, that is linking in one great economic
basin, Estonia. Latvia, Lithuania, the St Petersburg
region of Russia, northern Poland, northern Germany with
their own booming economies. In sum it is responsible for
a hefty 15% of world trade. Yet, the very fact that the
outlet for its energies is the great European market
place to the south combined with the fact that Finland
and Germany are already Euro-economies (and Poland and
the ex-Soviet Baltic states wish to be) means that
Denmark and Sweden cannot afford not to be part of it.
"Now at last we've built that damned bridge" said one
Swedish professor to me "we have to cross it. And that
means joining the Euro" .
The Hanseatic League was founded in the twelfth
century to aid trade in the Baltic area. At its height it
linked 160 cities and developed a sophisticated
commercial network that included a common boat, advanced
navigational aids and even a quasi parliament to discuss
inter-league problems. Under its protection the members
cities prospered and even today the identity and myth of
Hansa days live on. What is evolving today seems to many
to be a natural successor.
It is Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway which have
set the pace. Immediately the Soviet Union withdrew from
the Baltic states, Finland became the big brother to
Estonia, Sweden to Latvia and Denmark and Norway to
Lithuania. Estonia is only 80 kilometers from Finland and
it is not surprising that they have now become each
other's principal trading partners and are major tourist
destinations for both peoples. The Finns have helped
train the Estonian police and military and are training
the country's bureaucracy so that it can cope with the
country's planned membership of the European Union. All
of the Scandinavian countries are environmentally
conscious and have worked furiously with both the Baltic
states and Russia to attempt to clean up the Baltic which
in some parts had become nothing more than a great
sewer.
It is the Swedish-Danish bridge, however, that is
providing the main charge to the Baltic engine. In a
stroke it has created a metropolitan area of three
million people, linking the cultured and sophisticated
metropolis of Copenhagen with the old Swedish industrial
town of Malmoe and, 12 kilometers inland, the ancient
university- and now ultra high-tech town of Lund,
founding home of Framfab, Boo.com and other new age
companies. It is as large a trade and marketing centre as
Amsterdam or Berlin. It is growing at a clipping rate and
is set to attract the brightest of Europe's young people
with its easy facility for English, its good air and rail
links, relatively cheap housing and beautiful,
uncommercialized countryside and beaches within a half
hour's reach.
To an outsider it seems self-evident which way the
Danes and the Swedes must vote in their referenda. Yet on
the ground it is not so clear. The sceptical minority
could still pull off a no to the Euro, a no that will not
only vibrate across the bridge but which will be heard in
Britain too, perhaps putting the nail in for Prime
Minister Tony Blair as he attempts to line up his voters
to say yes. The Danish opponents of the Euro are playing
old tunes- it will weaken Denmark's welfare state, it
will lead to the abolition of the monarchy and, more
seriously, it is a huge step towards political union. If
they win they will have turned Denmark's and probably
Sweden's back on a great historical leap forward. Don't
they know if they want to retain Denmark as a peaceful
and civilized corner of Europe they have to be
integrationists, not recluses? Europe can only keep at
bay the dogs of war that tore it asunder twice in the
last century if all its parts work intimately with each
other. As the bridge was more than a bridge, the Euro is
more than a currency.
I can be reached by phone +44
385 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2000 By
JONATHAN POWER
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