U.K. Daily Mail, 5. June 1992
THE GOOD LIFE DANISH WOMEN WON`T GIVE UP - Paternity leave and maternity pay plus top jobs for the girls. Why these women voted ´NO´ to Europe
- "Our quality of life is simply better than anywhere else"

As women across Europe battle on, juggling husbands, babies and careers, many will look enviously at the life Danish women have carved out for themselves. And many will understand why their Danish sisters - anxious that Denmark´s unequalled welfare system should not be eroded by EC standardisation - roundly rejected the Maastricht Treaty in this week´s referendum.
No country in the world offers a better deal for women than Denmark, and in a Amercian quality of life survey published last week, Denmark came top out of 140 countries. Nowhere else gives as much maternity and paternity leave, spends as much on creche facilities, provides a more elaborate network of state childcare, or has more women in senior positions.
Of course, this has to be paid for. The average rate of tax is 52 per cent, but Danish women think the money is being well spent.
Renee Simonsen, the former Vogue covergirl dubbed ´the face of the Eighties´ at the height of her modelling career, was one of 57 per cent of Danish women who ticked the ´no´ box. She lived in New York for six years, four of them as the girlfriend of Duran Duran pop star John Taylor (now husband to Amanda de Cadenet). Three years ago she moved back to Denmark to resume her interrupted education: now, aged 27, she has a place at Copenhagen University to study psychology, starting in September. She knows the opportunity might not have been so readily available elsewhere.
"I was so concerned that Denmark would just be swallowed up", she says, explaining her decision to turn her back on Europe. "I´m still in favour of the EC, but I don´t want  a joint army and a joint currency.
Our welfare system is so well developed here, everything is taken care of. The minute a child is born, its name is put on a list and when a vacancy comes up the child can go into a nursery - as young as six months if the mother wants.
The most scary part is that Amercia appears to be the role model for what the EC might become. Yet so many Americans seem to fall through the net, so many don´t get education or welfare. Having lived there, I know the quality of life simply isn´t as good as ours."
The level of anxiety about the looming threat of Europe has been so high that an anti-EC grass roots movement, Denmark 92, was formed last December. Professor Liese Lyck, an economist and spokeswoman for the movement, emphasises that hostility to Europe is not ignorant and isolationist. She says Danish women, well-educated and fully appraised of the facts, have a real understanding of what Maastricht could mean.
There´s a trend in Europe in cutting down on the public sector. We´ve had a little of this, but not nearly as much as other countries, and we don´t want it to go any further. We have a lot of excellent free services, we want to keep them."
"Danish women", she adds, "are also fearful for their jobs. We have the highest employed labour force in Europe; 29 per cent of Danish women work. Before we joined the EC unemployment was at 1 per cent; now it´s 10 per cent. We look around and see unemployment is higher in EC countries than in countries that have stayed out - other Nordic countries, for example."
In prosperous Copenhagen you will meet scores of articulate women prepared to talk about their worries. Heidi Pederson, a 20-year-old office trainee, is especially concerned about the military implications of the European family.
"I could never say ´yes´ to a treaty that could mean my children, or their children, die fighting a European war. I realise this in an emotional issue, but I believe it´s one that many Danish women see as very important."
Christine Cordsen, a 34-year-old magazine editor who is divorced and the mother of a five-year-old son also voted ´no´. It is possible to be a single parent and have a career in Denmark", she says. "And I don´t think the same could be said for many other EC countries."
Vivienne McKee, an English actress who is married to a Dane and has lived in Denmark for 11 years, has no doubts about how she would have voted had she been a Danish citizen. "I would definetely have said ´no´. I would not like to see the Danish social system change. I could never have achieved in England what I have in Denmark. I write, direct and act in my own productions.
Denmark is streets ahead of England when it comes to equality of the sexes - both at work and in the home. Danish men wouldn´t dare to treat women differently."