At this writing, according to The Observer, "the vote is balanced on a knife's edge." The International Herald Tribune adds, "The latest Gallup survey on Danes and the euro…showed 44 percent in favor of joining, 43 percent against and 13 percent undecided." It appears to be a toss-up and the outcome could be crucial, affecting similarly planned referendums in Sweden and Britain.

The Danish government supports joining the euro, while a curious combination of right and left wing elements oppose it. One of the latter groups pointed out that "if you have a common currency, political power will be transferred from the national parliaments to Brussels, to bureaucrats and technocrats. When you have an economic union, you also have a political union."

Denmark's referendum is being closely watched in Sweden and Britain. It is speculated that if the Danes do vote "no," Sweden may abandon its plans to call its own referendum. But a "yes" vote followed by the same result in Sweden would then mean that 14 of the 15 European Union members have embraced the euro, with Britain the lone country out in the cold. This would put a lot of pressure on the increasingly isolated British to take that fateful step and join the European Common Currency. ( "Danish Doubts Add to Woes of Euro," by Ian Black in Vjele, Denmark, The Guardian, June 9, 2000; "The Nation That Likes to Say 'Nej' [No]," by Andrew Osborn, The Observer, August 27, 2000; "Danes on the Euro: Divided and Digging In," by Barry James, International Herald Tribune, August 29, 2000.)