Despite its small size and sometimes half-hearted embrace of European Union policies, Denmark has often punched above its weight in Brussels, with Danes holding high-ranking and influential positions.

But now Danish officials in Brussels are worried about a new threat to the strong EU political presence they’ve built up during four decades of membership in the bloc: a growing level of disinterest among young people in working for the European institutions. As many officials who started in the 1970s are approaching retirement, Danes say there are not enough future professionals in line to replace them.

“This will lead to a significant drop in people,” said Jeppe Torp Vestentoft, a diplomat in charge of EU careers at the Danish permanent representation in Brussels.

In addition, Danish job candidates are increasingly failing EU employment-admission tests, officials say. Last year just one candidate was successful out of about 300 applicants. For this year, only two Danes have qualified for the final testing phase in the selection procedure. The fear is that there will be too few Eurocrats starting on a career path that could eventually lead them to positions of power.

That’s not been a problem for Denmark since it joined the EU in 1973. From Henning Christophersen, a former minister and commissioner involved in drafting a European constitution in the early 2000s, to Margrethe Vestager, the influential competition commissioner now making transatlantic waves with her high-profile antitrust probes, Danish officials have proven adept at finding their way to the center of the EU political action.

Part of that success may have to do with Denmark’s unique relationship with the EU. The country has stayed out of the euro single currency and negotiated several “opt-outs” from justice and defense policies it didn’t want to adopt. But it is otherwise not seen as strongly Euroskeptic in the sense that Danes feel antipathy to Europe to the same extent that British people do, for example.

Rather, there is a feeling of what Derek Beach, an associate professor of political science at Denmark’s University of Århus, calls “soft Euroskepticism” — reflected in opinion surveys that show high percentages of Danes are merely “indifferent” about the EU rather than actively opposed to it.

Another sign of the love-hate relationship is the high number of Danes working in the EU institutions: currently about 850, almost half of whom are working for the European Commission, according the Danish permanent representation to the EU. That’s nearly as many officials in the EU institutions as the 1,000 from the U.K., a country with 10 times the population of Denmark.

Denmark has largely benefited from Europe’s internal market and economic policies. But the country is not formally part of the common EU asylum and immigration policies, and though it contributed both financially and logistically to the European refugee crisis, Copenhagen’s position on these issues is not always understood in Brussels.

“It sometimes felt like a shame here in Brussels not to be full members of the European Union,” said a European official who asked to remain anonymous. “Either you’re in or you’re not.”

That could be about to change. Danes will vote in a December referendum on whether to stay opted out of EU justice and home affairs issues — and the likelihood is that they will vote to opt in. The question is whether future Eurocrats will follow.

Influential Danes

Denmark may have a history of political intrigue stretching from “Hamlet” to “Borgen,” but when it comes to the EU scene its reputation is somewhat more business-like and no-nonsense — one that has helped Danes build up their current level of influence.

“We have a political pragmatism that travels well to Brussels,” said Kasper Ernest, director of the EU and international department at the Danish Chamber of Commerce.

Christophersen, Vestager and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former head of NATO, are among the Danish officials who have made a big impact on the European stage in recent years. Others, such as Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen, the secretary-general of the Council, and Preben Aamann, spokesman for European Council President Donald Tusk, have influence behind the scenes.

Vestager is arguably the most powerful Dane in Brussels right now, and may be the Commission’s most visible and sought-after member. As head of the competition team, she has been at the forefront of EU action in high-profile cases such as the launching of antitrust cases against Google and Gazprom.

Vestager came to Brussels with a solid reputation as a political performer, forged during Denmark’s turn at the helm of the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers in 2012. She was Danish finance minister at the time and was praised by other ministers for brokering deals on tough issues such as bank capital requirements.

Numbers game

The challenge now, diplomats say, is to try to maintain the numbers of Eurocrats that have made Denmark a player in Brussels.

“It’s not that we don’t have an audience,” Vestentoft said. “But the EU is only hiring a very limited number each year and we have too few candidates who actually pass the EU exams.”

The Danish authorities are trying to do something about that by training young people to pass the concours, the punishing series of entry exams required for many jobs in the European institutions. They are also asking Danes already working in the Commission to share their experiences with potential new recruits.

“I have employed about 17 young people, 12 as part of their studies,” said Bendt Bendtsen, a center-right MEP. “I hope some of them have gotten a taste for Brussels — I know so, because we stay in touch. Several of them now hold jobs in Denmark which are somehow EU related.”

But Bendtsen said he was concerned about the decline of Danish influence in the EU. “The fact that many of the current Danes are of a certain age and about to retire means they are currently well placed in terms of access to circles in which decisions are made that influence Denmark,” he said.

“It takes a long time to pass the exam, and then EU officials hold jobs for life,” said Bendtsen. “Young Danes fresh out of university are not that attracted to job security. For them it’s a lot more normal to change jobs every two or three years in the beginning of their careers.”

Beach said many of his political science students are aiming for jobs in ministries in Denmark or in international organizations like the United Nations rather than in Brussels.

Young Danes, Beach said,  don’t see the EU as “sexy” anymore.

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