The Coming Week in Europe: Danes Going to Polls on Propped-Up Euro

BERLIN -- Denmark may be a small, peaceful and prosperous country, but the Danes are famous for throwing monkey wrenches into the wheels of European integration.

They voted down the Maastricht Treaty -- which turned the European Community into the European Union -- on the first go in 1992. And the coming week could see the persnickety Scandinavians show their independent streak again when they go to the polls Thursday to decide whether Denmark will give up the krone, its currency, for the euro.

If they do come bearing wrenches, the euro could be in for a rocky time, despite the intervention Friday by the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the Bank of England to support it. A "no" vote could re-ignite negative sentiment toward the euro and might even renew its long slide, which caused it to lose nearly 30% of its value vs. the dollar since its inception in 1999. On Friday, the euro jumped 5% to over 90 cents after the intervention, but then settled back to 87.94 cents late in the European session. ...