Are Danes warming to the euro?

By Paul Henley
BBC News, Copenhagen

Mr Jensen believes joining the euro will be beneficial for the Danes

The Danish government has famously asked voters to say "Yes" to the euro before and ended up red-faced, to the delight of Eurosceptics all over the continent.

And yet it looks as if ministers are ready to risk embarrassment again. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has clearly signalled that he thinks the time is right for the euro in his country.

Michael Aastrup Jensen, European spokesman for Mr Rasmussen's Liberal Party, is on board, of course. He just hopes Danish voters are too - finally.

"Especially because of the financial crisis, I think it's very important we get the euro as soon as possible. We are a small country in a vulnerable position - not as badly placed as Iceland, because the Danish currency is very tied to the euro.

I think the last time everybody voted against the euro (in 2000), they voted with their hearts Luise Schmidtsdorff, Copenhagen

"However, this means we get some of the benefits of the eurozone but not all of them. Many polls are showing that more and more people agree with that," Mr Jensen says.

From a political point of view, he thinks the logic is clear: "We have a situation, right now, where all the finance ministers from the Eurogroup meet and make decisions on our behalf.

"And the next day our finance minister, and the others who are excluded, get to hear what has been decided and have to say 'OK, thanks for that' without having any say whatsoever. And we are tired of that," he says.

'Thinking with wallet'

For many Danish voters, it is, naturally, all about their money - more specifically, a growing belief that they will have more of it in euros.

Jan Schmidtsdorff is an enthusiastic euro supporter now

The country's property boom has seen house prices rise even more sharply in the past few years than in Spain or in the UK. And the crash has come just as dramatically, too.

But while mortgage-holders elsewhere in Europe have been cushioned by emergency cuts in national interest rates, Denmark's rates have gone up.

Its national bank's emergency measures have been to protect the Danish krone, pegged as it is to the euro via the EU's Exchange Rate Mechanism.

It is a painful time for a deeply-indebted population.

Jan and Louise Schmidtsdorff are a case in point. They have two children aged five and two, and last year they upgraded to a bigger house in a smart suburb of Copenhagen.

They are in the process of doing it up, mostly on borrowed money. Not convinced about the euro in the past, they are both enthusiastic supporters of it now.

"I think the last time everybody voted against the euro (in 2000), they voted with their hearts," Louise says.

"But this time it's different; it's about thinking of the future," her husband interrupts her, laughing.

"It's about thinking with the wallet. Everybody can suddenly see what an impact not having the euro has on our mortgages. We didn't realise it before. There's been such a boom in flexible loans and people are regretting that, with all the rises in the interest rate," Jan says.

New referendum?

Many business people are joining the euro-campaign, too.

Denmark's pork industry has been badly affected

Pork is the country's biggest single export, with approximately three times more pigs living in Denmark than people.

At a slaughterhouse in Ringsted, some 60km (40 miles) north of Copenhagen, that kills and processes more than 10,000 animals every weekday, Karsten Anker-Petersen, spokesman for the Danish Meat Association, says it is about stability and jobs.

"We have a huge export to Great Britain," he says, "worth 4bn Danish kroner (£450m) a year and, last year alone, the British pound fell 20% in value in comparison to our currency. We cannot earn that back by raising prices because consumers won't pay more. So it's a direct loss for our companies.

"Of course, I don't suppose the UK is anywhere near taking the euro, but it's one example of how big an issue currency fluctuation is for us. And we're exporting all over the world - to North America, to Russia, to Japan. I think all exporters speak more or less as one on this," Mr Anker-Petersen says.

A new Danish referendum on the issue is most likely to happen some time in 2009.

With the krone still a potent symbol of national pride in many people's minds, the argument is very far from over.

But any signs of crumbling resistance to the single European currency will be seized on by its supporters as proof of its success.

In these difficult times, it seems there is no shortage of countries taking a new interest in signing up to the euro.