Brexit Saga Pushes Danish Support for EU to Highest in 30 Years

(Bloomberg) -- Danish support for EU membership has reached a three-decade high in the wake of Brexit.

According to a Kantar Gallup poll published on Friday by the Berlingske newspaper, 66 percent of Danes are in favor of membership. That’s up from 54 percent in 2016, which is the year the U.K. voted to leave the bloc in a referendum. Support for a Danish exit has fallen to 22 percent, from 29 percent in 2016.

Kasper Moeller, a political scientist and election expert, called it “the biggest shift” in the Danes’ EU position ever, adding that it reflected an “unambiguous” reaction to what has happened in Britain.

Denmark, which joined the EU the same year as Britain, is due to hold a general election in the first half of 2019 in which the euro-skeptic Danish People’s Party is once again expected to play the role of kingmaker. The country’s biggest bank, Danske, said earlier on Friday that a no-deal Brexit poses the biggest risk to the Nordic economies.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nick Rigillo in Copenhagen at nrigillo@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tasneem Hanfi Brögger at tbrogger@bloomberg.net

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