Turnout: 65.77%
About this election
On 1 June 2022 Denmark held a referendum on abolishing its opt-out from the European Union's Common Security and Defence Policy. Voters approved abolition decisively, by 66.87% to 33.13% — the first time in history that Denmark had ever removed one of its EU opt-outs. The vote was a direct response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and marked a profound shift in Danish security policy.
The defence opt-out, like the justice opt-out, originated in the 1993 Edinburgh Agreement that secured Danish ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. It barred Denmark from participating in EU military operations and defence cooperation. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 transformed the European security debate, and within weeks a broad "national compromise" between the Social Democratic government and most opposition parties agreed to put the opt-out to a vote and to raise defence spending to 2% of GDP.
The "Yes" side — spanning the Social Democrats, Venstre, the Conservatives, the Social Liberals, the Socialist People's Party and the Moderates — argued that, with war returned to Europe, Denmark should stand fully alongside its EU partners and could no longer afford to sit out common defence efforts. The "No" side, led by the Red–Green Alliance, the Danish People's Party, the New Right and the Liberal Alliance (for differing reasons), warned variously of EU militarisation, loss of sovereignty and the primacy of NATO. The war gave the "Yes" campaign powerful momentum.
On a turnout of 65.77%, 66.87% voted Yes and 33.13% No. The "Yes" majority was emphatic and remarkably uniform: every one of the five regions backed abolition by roughly two to one, from the Capital Region's strongest support to a still-decisive margin in the rest of the country. The map above shows the Yes share by region.
With the opt-out abolished, Denmark joined the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy on 1 July 2022, ending nearly three decades on the sidelines of European defence and allowing Danish forces to take part in EU missions. Together with sharply increased defence spending and Finland's and Sweden's NATO applications, the vote was part of a wider Nordic security realignment triggered by the war in Ukraine, and it left Denmark with just two remaining EU opt-outs, on the euro and on citizenship.
The 2022 vote closed a half-century arc of Danish referendums on Europe — most of them famous for saying no. Danes approved joining the European Communities in 1972, rejected the Maastricht Treaty outright in 1992, and ratified it in 1993 only once the Edinburgh Agreement had carved out the four opt-outs. In 2000 they declined the euro, and in 2015 they refused to convert the justice opt-out into a flexible opt-in. Against that record, 2022 stands alone: the first time Danish voters ever gave an opt-out up, and by a margin that exceeded even the 1972 accession vote.
Previous Danish EU referendums were lost by governments that enjoyed broad elite support but faced diffuse public scepticism — in 1992, 2000 and 2015 the mainstream parties' endorsement failed to carry the country. In 2022 the same broad coalition won by two to one, and the difference was the context: a war on European soil made the question concrete rather than institutional. Voters were not asked to trust Brussels with more integration in the abstract, but to decide whether Denmark should sit out Europe's response to Russia — and that reframing dissolved the usual No majority within weeks of the invasion.
Turnout of 65.77% was clearly below the 72.00% of the 2015 justice referendum — consistent with a campaign whose outcome the polls never placed in serious doubt. The regional spread was remarkably narrow: from 63.92% Yes in North Jutland to 69.53% in the Capital Region, barely six points separated the most and least enthusiastic regions. Compare the 2015 map, where only the capital voted Yes and the provinces defeated the proposal: the 2022 result is less a map of division than a snapshot of a country moving together.
Official results from Statistics Denmark (Danmarks Statistik) — dst.dk/valg. The map shows the Yes share by region.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.