World News 29-09-2000 Danes Say Nej To Single Currency who: Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen what: Concedes defeat in referendum on single currency where: Denmark when: Last night snippet: "That`s No in Danish," explains The Mirror, where yesterday 87.5% of the country`s 4,004,679 eligible voters turned out to have their say on the country`s bitterly disputed economic future. "Their decision... has thrown into doubt Tony Blair`s hopes of holding a similar referendum after the next election," writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Telegraph. "The final referendum vote showed 53.1 per cent against joining and 46.9 per cent in favour." The vote has "torpedoed Tony Blair`s dream of scrapping the Pound next year, the year after that... and probably forever," says Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun. The Danes, he says, "achieved what the Tories could only pray for - they saved the Pound". The vote, described by The Times as "a popular rebellion" and "a personal blow to Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minster", will also "plunge the struggling euro into deeper crisis," says Leyla Linton in The Express. "It has already lost nearly a third of its value since its launch last year and risks falling even further." "This vote blows out of the water Labour`s scare tactics on the euro," says William Hague, quoted in The Guardian. "They claimed that Britain would be isolated if we keep the pound. We are not. They claimed euro membership was inevitable. It is not. They claimed Europe must be one size fits all. It must not." [... more]

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