Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Denmark will hold a referendum on whether to adopt the euro and drop exemptions to closer cooperation with the EU on defense and law enforcement, the prime minister said Thursday.
Danish voters rejected the European common currency in a 2000 referendum. The Scandinavian country has also opted out of other key areas of EU cooperation.
Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a news conference it was time to reassess those exemptions, which Denmark was granted in the early 1990s.
"A lot has changed since," he said. "It is the right time to take a decision."
No date was set for a vote but it would be held during the next four years, said the prime minister, whose center-right government was re-elected last week.
It was not immediately clear whether there would be a separate vote for each of the exemptions.
Danes stunned fellow EU nations in 1992 by rejecting the Maastricht treaty on closer European cooperation.
A year later, Danish voters approved a revised treaty with clauses letting the Scandinavian country stay outside a single currency and banking system and refrain from joining a European defense structure or conform to EU citizenship laws and common law enforcement.
"We have always said that the Danish exemptions are a hindrance for Denmark," said Fogh Rasmussen, Denmark's prime minister since 2001.
He said the referendum would be held after Denmark had ratified the new EU reform treaty, which includes changes in decision-making rules designed to make the union function more effectively. The treaty replaces the failed EU constitution, which was rejected two years ago.
Fogh Rasmussen's Liberal-Conservative coalition won the Nov. 13 snap election with support from its nationalist ally, the Danish People's Party, and a smaller centrist group.
Denmark, a country of 5.4 million people, has held five referendums on EU-related issues since it joined the bloc in 1973.
In the latest one, on Sept. 28, 2000, Danes voted 53.1 percent to 46.9 percent against replacing the Danish krone with the euro. Recent opinion polls have shown a narrow majority of Danes now favor switching to the euro.