Europe's editorial pages have been devoting a good deal of space to the Europan Union expansion challenge facing Denmark when it takes over the EU's rotating presidency on Monday.

But it wasn't long ago that Denmark was making headlines for other reasons.

The Scandinavian country became the first to raise the collective European eyebrow this year when it voted Pia Kjaersgaard's anti-immigrant populist party into the federal coalition government. Kjaersgaard's so-called "pianists" have already had a huge say in Denmark's restrictive new immigration legislation. How much will they have when the EU discusses introducing a collective policy on immigration and asylum?

Immigration and Asylum

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has promised to put immigration on the agenda over the next six months, after a recent EU summit in Seville, Spain failed to make much progress on the issue.

EU leaders seemed have been resistant to a European-wide policy that would hijack their own national policies on refugees and illegal immigrants. They got as far as agreeing Europe did, in fact, need immigrants and needed common rules to decide who to let in. But that was in 1999. Since then, little progress has been made.

In fact, quite the opposite has occured. Governments such as Italy have gone their own road, passing a law that fingerprints new arrivals and almost immediately deports illegal immigrants. The measures suit hard-line countries like Denmark just fine, but are considered over the top by other EU members.

At the Seville meeting, EU leaders agreed on better cooperation between their border police and improving the sharing of Visa information on prospective immigrants. They also promised, rather vaguely, to punish countries of origin and transition for illegal immigrants if they didn't crack down on the problem. Whether Denmark will get more that that out of its colleagues in the six months is doubtful.

Finding the money for Farmer Ioannes

Where Rasmussen's government will have to find a solution is in the thorny issue of farm subsidies. The amount of money the European Union gives out to its member nations has proved to be a major stumbling block in negotiations with the 10 candidate countries looking for membership.

The clock is ticking faster than ever. In December, Denmark expects to hold the historic vote to decide which of the candidate countries get into the union. Before that takes place, Rasmussen's government has to untangle disputes both within the EU and between Brussels and the candidate countries.

Current members, Germany chief among them, wants EU member states to wean themselves off of the 40 billion euro in farm aid Brussels gives out annually - about half its budget.

The way Chancellor Gerhard Schröder figures, with the addition of the agricultural-heavy new Eastern economies the farm budget needs to expand - and Germany will have to pick up a quarter of the bill. That is not something he wants to go to voters with come federal elections this Sept. 22.

To help make the burden seem lighter, the EU has proposed giving the new states 25 percent of the subsidies current members get and equalling it out over a decade. That has come under massive criticism from states like Poland, which badly needs the subsidies and doesn't want to be treated like a second-class citizen.

Rasmussen and his deputies have responded to both sides with threats. After Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said his country would rather delay negotiations until a more favorable solution could be reached, Rasmussen's deputy fired back a vehement "no".

"What you can't solve in Copenhagen, you can't solve three months later," said Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller.