Poul Oluf Nyrup Rasmussen (Danish pronunciation: [ˈpʰʌwl ˈnyˀɔp ˈʁɑsmusn̩], informally Poul Nyrup, born 15 June 1943) is a retired Danish politician, who served as Prime Minister of Denmark from 25 January 1993 to 27 November 2001 and President of the Party of European Socialists (PES) from 2004 to 2011. He was the leader of the governing Social Democrats from 1992 to 2002 and was also a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2009.

Rasmussen is a member of the Club of Madrid. In 2007 he published the book I grådighedens tid (In a Time of Greed), which contains harsh criticism of the role hedge and venture capital funds play in the global economy.

Rasmussen was born to a working-class family on 15 June 1943 in Esbjerg, Denmark, to Oluf and Vera Eline Nyrup Rasmussen. He studied at the University of Copenhagen, earning a M.sc. degree in economics in 1971. While studying, he was active in the social democratic student union Frit Forum, where he met some of his future political colleagues. He paid his way through university by doing several jobs, like counting traffic and being a part-time delivery boy.

He was first elected to the Folketing from Western Jutland in 1987, where he became Deputy Chairman of the Social Democrats, with Svend Auken as chairman. He had together with Mogens Lykketoft made proposals for Social Democratic reforms. From 1988 to 1992 he was chairman of the Committee on Business and Trade, as well as spokesperson of Business. After the 1990 election, he was seen as a much more realistic candidate for Prime Minister than Auken.

In 1992 Rasmussen replaced Auken, the long serving leader of the Social Democrats, after his failure to form a government with the Radikale Venstre after the 1990 election, despite good results for both parties. Many in the party felt that Auken had stuck to a too left wing agenda, scuttling a possible deal with the more centrist Radikale Venstre.

Rasmussen came to power in early 1993 when then-Prime Minister Poul Schlüter resigned after an inquiry found that he had misinformed the Folketing about the so-called Tamil Case. A coalition of Social Democrats, Social Liberals, Centre Democrats and Christian Democrats, Rasmussen's first cabinet made use of limited classical Keynesianism in connection with the so-called kick-start of 1993–94 as its economic policy. The Christian Democrats left the coalition after their defeat in the 1994 Folketing election, as did the Centre Democrats in late 1996. Key ministers were Economy and Deputy Prime Minister, Social Liberal leader Marianne Jelved, Finance Minister Mogens Lykketoft (Social Democrats) and Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen (Social Liberals).

The centre-left coalition only narrowly held on to its parliamentary majority in the 1998 Folketing election. After the election Prime Minister Rasmussen stated that the government's first order of business was to secure a "yes" vote in the upcoming referendum on ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty between the member states of the European Union. Eventually there were 55% "yes" votes in the Danish Amsterdam Treaty referendum. Rasmussen's government later presided over the 2000 referendum on Danish participation in the euro, in which participation was rejected by 53.2% of the vote. A 1998 initiative, dubbed the Whitsun Packet (Danish: Pinsepakken) from the season it was issued, increased taxes, limiting private consumption. It was not universally popular with the electorate, which may have been a factor in the Social Democrats' defeat in the 2001 parliamentary election.

Rasmussen called an early election in 2001, saying this would give the next prime minister time to prepare for Denmark's upcoming presidency of the European Union in 2002. The patriarchal role Rasmussen had built for himself since the 11 September attacks had gained him and the Social Liberals their highest poll ratings in years, a lead that would be eroded in the buildup to the election.