Euroscepticism has fast lost support in Denmark as the consequences of Britain’s vote for Brexit become clearer, new polling suggest.
Denmark joined the EU in the same year as the UK and has long been seen as one of the more eurosceptic or anti-EU countries along with its British neighbours over the North Sea.
But a new poll for Danish public broadcaster DR conducted by Epinion found Danes’ attitudes have softened quite dramatically since the Brexit vote.
Voters now say they would reject a referendum on leaving by 55 per cent to 27 per cent – a 28 per cent gap in favour of the EU.
This compares to polling conducted in 2016 by the same company before the EU referendum that found the result would be much closer – 44 per cent to 37 per cent, just 7 per cent.
The previous, more narrow gap in public opinion was similar to the one that the Leave campaign had to bridge in the Brexit referendum.
Like Britain, Denmark has its own opt-outs from using the European single currency and other EU agencies.
Rising pro-EU sentiment in Denmark is not isolated: the regular eurobarometer poll conducted by the European Commission in August found that more Europeans than ever say they feel like EU citizens.
As Britain heads towards the exit door the rest of the continent feels more positive about European identity than ever, with a solid 68 per cent of the population telling the regular Eurobarometer poll that they “feel they are a citizen of the EU”.
There were also sharp rises in optimism about the EU across the board, but especially in France, where new president Emmanuel Macron saw off a far-right challenger, and Portugal, whose government has ended austerity and kick-started growth with an investment programme.
Aside from the example of Brexit, the new figures also come amid a solid increase in growth and other economic indicators across the continent.
In Britain there has been little significant movement in the referendum voting intention polls since voters decided to leave by 52 per cent to 48 per cent in June 2016.
