It may be necessary for Denmark to negotiate its way temporarily out of the EU if the country votes No in the forthcoming referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty. This view is that of the man currently most likely to be the country's next Prime Minister, Mr Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, a former foreign minister and leader of the Venstre Party (Liberals).
Mr Ellemann-Jensen does not relish the prospect - on the contrary, he is a passionate Europhile who is appalled by it. "But what should not happen," he told The Irish Times, "is that Denmark in any way should delay the enlargement of the Union. We would not be forced to negotiate a new relationship, but simple decency would demand that from us."
"I have a very, very strong personal feeling about the importance of enlargement," he says. "No problem on a European or national agenda is more important." The option of the Danes taking up member ship of the free-trade European Economic Area like the Norwegians is a possibility, he says.
He is grimly serious, but one can't help feeling that this is typical Ellemann-Jensen hard-sell to an electorate that he believes has not woken up to the real implications of its vote.
The possibility that the Danes will do to the Amsterdam Treaty on May 28th what they did to Maastricht, which they rejected in 1992, sends cold shudders through the Brussels political establishment. Quite simply, the treaty fails if it is not agreed by all.
In 1993, a frantic renegotiation obtained a number of Danish protocols, enough to secure a successful reballot. But both Mr Ellemann-Jensen and the Social Democratic Prime Minister, Mr Poul Nyrup-Rasmussen, insist that such an option is not viable for Amsterdam. There is simply no scope in the treaty for more specific exceptions.
And a wild card was added to the ratification process by the surprise calling of a general election for next week. Observers worry that if Mr Nyrup-Rasmussen's gamble does not pay off for the ruling centre-left coalition, as appears likely, the Social Democrats will have more difficulty dragooning their traditionally more Euro-sceptic voters into voting Yes.
That prospect was not helped by the line taken by the prime minister in his debate with his rival in Sonderborg on Wednesday. Although Mr Nyrup-Rasmussen has driven anti-EU forces out of the party, the Social Democrats have clearly been rattled by the Liberals' continued high standing in the polls and the straining of a broadly bipartisan line on the treaty is the result.
This is "our Treaty", Mr Nyrup-Rasmussen, told the crowd, warning that Mr Ellemann-Jensen would have sold out on Danish opt-outs in his enthusiasm for things European. The implication is clear: the Liberals are not to be trusted on the EU.
Mr Ellemann-Jensen admits he dislikes the opt-outs and wants Denmark fully in the single currency, the WEU, and the Schengen accord on passport-free travel. But he pledges not to put any of them to a further referendum until he is confident the ground is properly prepared and he can win it. He insists that the mood of Danish society is not like 1992 and that the Treaty will be passed.
In Copenhagen there is a growing sense that he may be right, although the opinion poll majority relies on a 20 per cent don't know vote which last time swung to the Noes.
The focus of the campaign is the provisions of the Schengen agreement from which the Danes have negotiated a partial opt-out. Controversy rages over alleged fears that an open border policy will lead to a flood of refugees.
But the issue has split the anti-Amsterdam campaigns, with the left wing much less willing to make common cause with anti-immigrant propaganda of the right. They insist that their objections are precisely the opposite, to a Fortress Europe that excludes refugees. A third of the left-wing Socialist People's Party now openly supports the treaty.
In the election the Amsterdam issue has until now been fought by proxy in the form of a bitter row about the rights of refugees. Indeed, the election posters of the far-right Danish People's Party (DPP) - their leader, Ms Pia Kjaersgaard, resolutely barring entry to Denmark at a border post - are likely to be recycled for use in the referendum. With an 8 per cent share of the vote, her party will be a key external backer of any right wing coalition. It says it will only back a government which takes firm action on "abuse" of the refugee system by economic migrants. Ominously, although the mainstream parties profess to deplore the crude xenophobia of the DPP, the party has been successful in putting the issue very firmly on the agenda.
Mr Ellemann-Jensen's internationalism on the EU does not stop him playing the refugee card, as he did on Wednesday night. His room for manoeuvre is slim. The Centre Democrats, likely to be crucial coalition partners, will not support him if he cracks down. But Mr Ellemann-Jensen knows he does not need to be specific to make the issues politically profitable.
The DPP spokesman, Mr Soren Espersen, a party candidate in Copenhagen, insists they are not racist - they are just as opposed to the permanent residence of refugees who fled Bosnia now that peace is restored at home. That is all that UN conventions require, he says. Refugees should not be taught Danish or integrated into Danish society but prepared for return.
"But now we are teaching them Danish from day one," he says. His party would pay for the full repatriation of all Palestinians and Somalis. They no longer, he says, face persecution.
Denmark has the most liberal refugee regime in the EU. "We would like the Irish model which is reasonable," he says, arguing that all development aid and financial support for foreigners should be cut as well as all state funding to culture. He regards Schengen and the Amsterdam Treaty as an open invitation to refugees because they depend on the impossible implementation of firm controls on the EU's external borders.
The DPP, like the successful Progressives in Norway recently, has certainly touched a Danish raw nerve. A traditional pride in self-sufficiency and hostility to the big neighbour Germany have played with a fear of globalisation among those untouched by its benefits, the old, the unemployed and the unskilled.
The irony is that while Ireland finds a welcome outlet through its EU role for its desire to step out from the shadow of its big brother neighbour, Denmark retreats in on itself.
