Denmark in 1998Article Free Pass
Area: 43,094 sq km (16,639 sq mi)
Population (1998 est.): 5,303,000
Chief of state: Queen Margrethe II
Head of government: Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen
In Denmark 1998 was an eventful year, with parliamentary elections and an important referendum on Europe dominating the political scene. In a very close contest, the ruling centre-left Social Democratic-Radical Liberal minority government of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, prime minister since 1993, proved the pollsters wrong by clinging to power in a general election in March. In the vote Rasmussen’s centre-left government and its leftist allies held on to a total of 90 seats in the 179-seat Folketing (parliament), including two members from the North Atlantic territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland; the centre-right opposition bloc, headed by the Liberals, won 89 seats. The big winner at the polls was the far-right Danish People’s Party; campaigning on an anti-immigration platform, it more than tripled its representation to 13 seats.
After the March elections the focus switched to Europe. In April, after a lengthy hearing, the nation’s Supreme Court unanimously threw out a petition from a citizens’ group questioning the constitutionality of Denmark’s membership in the European Union (EU). This ruling paved the way for a nationwide referendum on May 28 on the country’s adhesion to the Amsterdam Treaty, signed in 1997 at an EU summit in the Dutch capital. The Amsterdam Treaty made job creation a formal EU goal, supported increased cooperation in foreign affairs, and allowed for the EU to expand in order to take in countries in Eastern Europe. Much to the relief of the EU and Denmark’s political establishment, the notoriously "Euroskeptical" Danes voted by a clear 55% to 45% in favour of the treaty.
In May the government intervened to pass legislation putting an end to the country’s biggest strike since 1985--an 11-day action by about 500,000 private-sector workers--which crippled manufacturing industries, construction, and transportation and cost Denmark about a billion kroner a day in lost output. In June a major economic austerity package was imposed to prevent the economy from overheating, but late in the year the pace of the country’s otherwise impressive economic upturn was clearly becoming dented by the global financial crisis, which caused a particularly severe drop in agricultural exports.
On a more bizarre level, Copenhagen made world headlines in January when the Little Mermaid statue, the Danish capital’s tourist icon located on the city’s waterfront, suffered its second decapitation in 35 years. The mermaid’s severed head was quickly retrieved--in fairly good condition--after it was found in a box outside a local television station, and a Danish TV cameraman was later jailed for the act of vandalism on Denmark’s 85-year-old landmark.
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