All this takes place within a narrow range around the central parity. From an economic point of view, the ERM II works smoothly and Denmarks has almost the samme exchange-rate stability as we would have had in case of membership of the European Monetary Union. From a political point of view the situation is completely different.
During the second stage of EMU, the Nationalbank participated fully in the preparatory work for the third stage. This came to an abrupt halt in the summer of 1998 when the ECB started. When the party to celebrate the new institution in Frankfurts Alte Oper on 30 June 1998 was over, the Nationalbank found itself marginalised.