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EUROPEAN UNION

MAP: Which Danish areas were most EU-friendly in referendum?

On Wednesday, an overwhelming majority of Danes, almost 67 percent, voted in favour of joining the EU's common defence policy, 30 years after opting out. It was the clearest result of all nine referendums on EU issues so far. We take a look at the results across the regions.

Published: 2 June 2022 16:53 CEST
MAP: Which Danish areas were most EU-friendly in referendum?
A map showing the percentage of people in Denmarks constituencies who voted in favour of ending the EU defence opt-out.

This interactive map shows the percentage of voters in each constituency who voted in favour of joining the EU’s common defence policy. The data is taken from Denmark’s Statistic when votes had been counted but there may still be some slight adjustments to the data.

Each constituency had a majority of yes votes, in favour of scrapping the EU defence opt-out. 

In the constituencies Gentofte and Rudersdal, four out of five voters put a cross by “yes,” according to figures from KMD, which operated the referendum’s electronic result count.

The constituency with the lowest percentage of yes votes was Frederikshavn in North Jutland, followed by Esbjerg By in Southwest Jutland. Here, 41.7 and 40.9 percent voted “no”, respectively.

The Frederikshavn constituency, which covers Læsø and Frederikshavn Municipality, was the constituency where the fewest voted yes. The largest proportion of EU-critical voters were also found in the Lolland constituency, the Esbjerg City constituency and the Kalundborg constituency, which also covers Odsherred Municipality.

A total of 32,807 people voted with a blank space on Wednesday. This equates to approximately every 85th voter, corresponding to approximately 1.17 percent of all voters. In the 2015 vote, 46,100 people voted blank.

Although Wednesday’s referendum was the clearest result of all nine referendums held in Denmark on EU issues, the turn out was the second lowest of the nine votes.

65.8 percent of voters went to the polls, equating to 2.8 million people, according KMD. Only once before has voter turnout been lower, in 2014 when 55.9 percent of those eligible to vote went to the polls. In 2015, the most recent EU referendum, it was 72 percent.

The highest turnout this year was in the constituency Rudersdal, where 76.6 percent of people voted and Egedal, which had a 73.9 per cent turn out.

At the other end of the scale, Bispebjerg had the lowest turn out, with 57.1 percent, followed by Brøndby with 57.3 percent.

According to election researcher Kasper Møller Hansen from Copenhagen University, the referendum on Wednesday follows a tendency for lower turnout in Danish elections.

“I'm surprised it falls so much. But we are in a development where turnout falls not just for referendums, but also in, for example, the local elections last year”, he told newswire Ritzau.

"If the people do not want to be heard, the referendums lose their legitimacy. That is perhaps one of the most important things we need to learn from this turnout.

"There are several Danes who have turned their backs on democracy by staying at home", he said.

READ MORE: What will decision to end EU defence opt-out change for Denmark?

 
 

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EUROPEAN UNION

Denmark joins countries calling for asylum centres outside EU

Denmark is one of 15 EU member states who have sent a joint letter to the European Commission demanding a further tightening of the bloc's asylum policy, which will make it easier to transfer undocumented migrants to third countries, such as Rwanda, including when they are rescued at sea.

Published: 16 May 2024 16:08 CEST
Denmark joins countries calling for asylum centres outside EU

The letter, sent to the European Commission on Thursday, comes less than a month before European Parliament elections, in which far-right anti-immigration parties are forecast to make gains.

The letter asks the European Union’s executive arm to “propose new ways and solutions to prevent irregular migration to Europe”.

The group includes Italy and Greece, which receive a substantial number of the people making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to reach the EU — many seeking to escape poverty, war or persecution, according to the International Organization for Migration.

They want the EU to toughen up its recently adopted asylum pact, which introduces tighter controls on those seeking to enter the 27-nation bloc.
That reform includes speedier vetting of people arriving without documents, new border detention centres and faster deportation for rejected asylum applicants.

The 15 proposed in their letter the introduction of “mechanisms… aimed at detecting, intercepting — or in cases of distress, rescuing — migrants on the high seas and bringing them to a predetermined place of safety in a partner country outside the EU, where durable solutions for those migrants could be found”.

They said it should be easier to send asylum seekers to third countries while their requests for protection are assessed.

They cited the example of a controversial deal that Italy has struck with non-EU Albania, under which Rome can send thousands of asylum seekers plucked from Italian waters to holding camps in the Balkan country until their cases are processed.

The concept in EU asylum law of what constitutes “safe third countries” should be reassessed, they continued.

Safe country debate

EU law stipulates that people arriving in the bloc without documents can be sent to a third country, where they could have requested asylum — so long as that country is deemed safe and the applicant has a genuine link with it.

That would exclude schemes like the divisive law passed by the UK, which has now left the EU, enabling London to refuse all irregular arrivals the right to request asylum and send them to Rwanda.

Rights groups accuse the African country — ruled with an iron fist by President Paul Kagame since the end of the 1994 genocide that killed around 800,000 people — of cracking down on free speech and political opposition.

The 15 nations said they wanted the EU to make deals with third countries along the main migration routes, citing the example of the arrangement it made with Turkey in 2016 to take in Syrian refugees from the war in their home country.

The letter was signed by Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.

It was not signed by Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban has resisted EU plans to share out responsibility across the bloc for hosting asylum seekers, or to contribute to the costs of that plan.

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