Danes back Amsterdam Treaty

Denmark last night decisively backed the Amsterdam Treaty, to the considerable relief of both its government and other EU capitals. The final result was 55.1 per cent in favour to 44.9 per cent against, significantly down on the 57 per cent Yes in the second Danish vote on Maastricht in 1993.

While both sides claimed the result as a triumph for their campaigns, the government will be relieved that it held the line in the face of a campaign orchestrated by a far right and left representing only 20 per cent of the Folketing, the Danish parliament.

In a final gesture of defiance, No activists wrapped Copenhagen's famous Little Mermaid in chains, a symbol, they said, of Denmark's subservience to Brussels. The long-suffering mermaid was decapitated in January, and the head was found a few days later.

The referendum result will be welcomed throughout the rest of the EU as ratification depends on agreement by all 15 memberstates. Memories are fresh of the political crisis prompted by the Danes' rejection of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, and its approval in 1993 with new Danish opt-outs.

The Social Democrat Minister for Finance, Mr Mogens Lykke toft, said last night he was delighted by the result of a difficult, technical campaign that had been more a vote on Denmark's EU membership than on the details of the treaty. He did not accept that further EU integration would be made yet more difficult. Future streamlining of decision-making would not necessarily require referendums.

The leader of the far-right, anti-immigrant Danish People's Party, Ms Pia Kjaersgaard, hailed the result, saying that voters had been frightened in the last few days by talk of Denmark having to leave the EU. "In their hearts they would have voted No," she said.

The result was in doubt right up to the end. Notoriously inexact polls had given the Yes camp a lead of between 10 and 16 per cent yesterday morning, a result narrowed by the lighter-than-usual poll. Turnout was down 11 percentage points on 1993 to 75 per cent.

Soundings taken earlier by journalists in the working-class Copenhagen area of Norrebro, the scene in 1993 of riots after the Yes vote on Maastricht in which 11 people were wounded by police firing live rounds, pointed to a resounding No.