The Prime Minister of Denmark, the social democrat Mette Frederiksen, announced this Thursday the call for early general elections for next March 24. Frederiksen, who already headed a minority Executive between 2019 and 2022, has governed for four years in a coalition with the Liberal Party and the centrist Moderate Party.
The elections have been a few months ahead of the official calendar: they were to be held on October 31 at the latest, but rumors about an advance had exploded in recent weeks. Denmark has been in the last year, due to the threat launched by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, to appropriate the Arctic island of Greenland, which is autonomous Danish territory.
Frederiksen made the announcement from the tribune of Parliament (Folketing) and has not ruled out any possible government formula if his party retains its status as the most voted, including a coalition with the rest of the left-wing forces if it thus achieves “the capacity to maneuver.”
“I am not excluding anything in advance, because in the time we live in I am not going to raise extreme demands,” said the social democratic leader. He has stressed, in any case, that his intention is to continue with the current line of his policy, delving deeper, among other things, into investment in defense.
“If we have the possibility of forming a government again, there are things that will remain fixed. Denmark will continue to rearm and help protect Europe against the Russian war machine from the east,” he stated, without explicitly mentioning the United States and its annexationist ambitions over Greenland. “Security policy is and will be the foundation of Danish policy for many years. The same with the tough immigration policy,” added the prime minister.
In recent months, Denmark has gone through a colossal crisis in its relationship with the United States due to President Donald Trump’s repeated interest in taking over the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland for security reasons. The announcement, at the end of January, of a preliminary agreement with NATO to strengthen security in the Arctic and the start of the meetings of the high-level working group agreed between the US, Denmark and Greenland have reduced tension.
Frederiksen has also announced that the Social Democratic Party will propose introducing a wealth tax if it governs. “When the richest 1% of the population owns about a quarter of the total net wealth of Danes, it is too unequal. That is why we propose a wealth tax. Denmark has not become a rich and strong society based on inequality,” he noted. The tax would raise, according to Government calculations, some 6 billion Danish crowns (800 million euros), which would be allocated to public primary schools.
