Nations like Denmark and Poland may switch to the euro now that their own currencies have suffered./SAMUEL KUBANI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

By CARTER DOUGHERTY


COPENHAGEN - The deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression has prompted countries that had held out against the euro to take a new look at the virtues of the common European currency.

After turmoil in the currency markets nearly destroyed the currencies of Iceland and Poland, the two countries are rethinking their opposition to the euro. More surprisingly, Denmark - a nearly pictureperfect model of economic management - looks more likely to embrace the euro after rejecting it twice in the past.

Denmark was forced to use high interest rates to defend its currency, the krone, against speculative attack. The effects of those higher rates are now rippling through the Danish economy, leading some to support a change in the currency.

“Denmark is so extremely sound by all macroeconomic standards,” said Thomas Mirow, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Its evolving stance on the euro “says a lot about stand-alone options in difficult times.”

The huge downturn in financial markets has led to a “flight to quality,” the term investors use to describe a sudden shift of money out of potentially risky assets into the safest possible assets. The euro and investments denominated in euros have benefited from the shift.

In late October, the Polish zloty fell sharply in value against the euro as markets fretted that the economic crisis gripping Hungary would spread to neighboring Poland.

Law and Justice, the rightist nationalist party to which the president, Lech Kaczynski, belongs, has long demanded that Poland hold a referendum on the euro, believing it would fail. But the Polish zloty’s depreciation suddenly threatened a swath of the party’s voters who had taken out euro- denominated loans, analysts said.

Within a few days, Mr.Kaczynski agreed to a plan for adopting the euro by 2012, and quietly dropped demands for a vote.

Hungary, which also received assistance from the European Central Bank, is also shifting toward the euro. And public sentiment has changed in Sweden, which also belongs to the European Union but voted down the euro in 2003.

Iceland has long rejected membership in the European Union, a prerequisite for adopting the euro, because it feared the bloc’s common fisheries policy would strip it of control over a vital natural resource. But as Iceland teetered on bankruptcy this year before securing a lifeline from the International Monetary Fund, the country’s krona fell nearly 80 percent against the euro.

Now facing a deep recession, polls show that 60 to 70 percent of Icelanders favor joining the European Union and abandoning the krona.

Analysts point to Denmark as the litmus test for the euro’s appeal. The country had already rejected the common currency in two referendums, the most recent in 2000. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has seized the moment to announce plans for a third referendum.

The main obstacle to joining the euro zone, however, is still very much political. The Socialist People’s Party, the main opposition group, has long opposed adopting the euro, saying that the European Union needs to pay more attention to popular causes like curbing speculation and making agricultural policies more environmentally friendly.

Supporters of the common currency have come to believe that they can rely on a new set of voters: the young Danes who have traveled widely and experienced the benefits of the euro. At the time of the last referendum, euro cash and coins had not yet been introduced.

Marie Petersen, a student and part-time waitress, said her year studying in Spain convinced her that she would rather have euros in her pocket than Danish kroner.

“You can see how it works in other countries,”Ms.Petersen, 21, said.“That’s a big difference from last time.”