<<European leaders leapt to defend the euro on Friday after Denmark said ``no'' to joining the battered single currency in an historic referendum.
A preliminary final result gave a resounding 53.1 percent to the anti-euro ``no'' vote against 46.9 percent for those who wanted Denmark to be the 13th member of the euro zone.
The result will further dent confidence in the euro, which has slumped by almost a third since its launch last year, and could reshape Europe's political landscape.
Denmark's rejection of Europe's currency was likely to trouble European Union finance ministers who meet later on Friday in Brussels for monthly talks.
Experts said the Danish result was a blow to EU morale and would make it even more difficult for the other two euro ''outs,'' Britain and Sweden, to sign up to monetary union.
For the second time in less than a decade, one of Europe's smallest, wealthiest, but most fiercely independent nations had thumbed its nose at those trying to drive the European Union toward closer integration.
Jubilant anti-euro campaigners celebrated a famous win, claiming victory for the people over a distant political elite, while somber government ministers warned the result could split Europe in two.
Political analysts said the euro zone core would now press ahead with closer political and economic integration, risking deeper divisions within the 15-nation EU.
``One can only fear that this ``no'' to joining the euro will spark a European Union at different speeds,'' Danish Finance Minister Mogens Lykketoft told Reuters.
A bitterly disappointed Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen dismissed any thoughts of resigning and vowed to fight on.
He warned that Denmark now risked being sidelined within Europe, left behind in the slow lane while others pressed ahead.
Rasmussen's campaign had urged Danes to sign up to the euro to ensure their voice was heard where decisions were being taken, but ``no'' campaigners feared a further erosion in national sovereignty as more power seemed to be centralized in Brussels.
Eu To Keep Euro Door Open To Danes
Reuters Photo
While EU leaders insisted the door was still open to Denmark to join the euro at some stage, Lykketoft said it was unlikely another referendum would be held for at least five years.
The euro held steady at over 88.10 cents in the early hours of Friday and economists said the currency's downside was limited by the threat of central bank intervention.
EU leaders and monetary chiefs were quick to dismiss the impact of the Danish referendum on the currency.
European Central Bank President Wim Duisenberg acknowledged the result, but said it would not alter cooperation between the ECB and the Danish Central bank.
French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said Denmark was a small nation and a ``no'' result posed ``no problem'' for the euro.
European Commission (news - web sites) President Romano Prodi denied the vote would lead to a two-speed Europe.
He talked instead in terms of ``reinforced cooperation'' -- a mechanism allowing countries to forge ahead in certain policy areas that the Commission wants incorporated in a new EU treaty to be signed at a Nice summit in December.
``The door is open (to Denmark to join later) and must always be so as in similar types of reinforced cooperation, but not a two tier Europe,'' Prodi said.
He accepted there might be some psychological dent to Britain and Sweden's chances of joining the euro, but said the three countries had different reasons for staying out.
Germany, the biggest economy in the euro zone, reaffirmed its faith in the single currency, and Finance Minister Hans Eichel said the zone would move ahead with the ``irreversible'' process of European integration.
The Danish ``no'' was more emphatic than the shock results of a 1992 referendum when Danes rejected the Maastricht Treaty -- the blueprint for monetary union.
That vote shook confidence in the single currency project and prompted a financial crisis that saw the pound and lira expelled from the Exchange Rate Mechanism.>>> |
