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Danish Liberal leader aims to ‘build confidence’ in latest talks with Frederiksen

Talks between Denmark’s two largest political parties over a potential new government agreement continued at Prime Minister’s residence Marienborg on Monday.

Danish Liberal leader aims to 'build confidence' in latest talks with Frederiksen
Danish Liberal leader Jakob Ellemann-Jensen on Monday as talks to form a new government progress. Photo: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix

The Liberal (Venstre) party was engaged in talks with acting Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats on Monday afternoon, broadcaster DR reported.

Liberal leader Jakob Ellemann-Jensen said the latest round of talks would focus on the economy.

“We’ve spoken a lot about that so far. It’s a precondition for everything. And we will also talk about a ‘freedom reform’, meaning freeing citizens within our social welfare system. We will also speak about health reforms,” he said in comments reported by DR.

Ellemann-Jensen was also asked about his working relationship with Frederiksen, whom he said he “could not trust” before elections at the beginning of November.

“Confidence is something you must build. We are working on that, so now I will go in and build confidence and have a discussion about the economy,” he said.

READ ALSO: What does Denmark’s Liberal party want from government negotiations?

The Liberals, the largest party in the ‘blue bloc’ conservative group, ruled out governing with Frederiksen prior to the election, but has since moved to a more open stance.

Suggestions the Liberals may be prepared to enter government with the Social Democrats gained momentum following a Liberal party national conference earlier this month.

After the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedlisten), one of the parties that gave Frederiksen’s red bloc a slim parliamentary majority, was among parties to exit negotiations last week, pressure appears to be building on the Liberals on to find an agreement.

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POLITICS

Founder of far-right Danish People’s Party to retire from politics

Pia Kjærsgaard, the woman who built the far-right Danish People's Party into the kingmaker of Danish politics, transforming the country's immigration debate, has announced her retirement from parliament.

Founder of far-right Danish People's Party to retire from politics

The 77-year-old, who stepped down from the leadership of her party in 2012 after 17 years at the helm, said in an interview on Friday that she would cease to be an MP when the current parliamentary term ends in 2026.

“You have to go when you are loved and respected. I feel very loved by my supporter base and by the party and also by a good part of the population,” I think it’s fair to say Kjærsgaard said in an interview on the TV2 channel. “So the time is now, after 40 years at [the parliament in] Christiansborg.” 

 
Kjærsgaard was elected as an MP for the now defunct Progress Party in 1984, leading the party for ten years between 1985 and 1995, when she left to found the Danish People’s Party. 
 
After the party became the third largest in parliament in the 2001 elections, Kjærsgaard forced the centre-right coalition led by Anders Fogh Rasmussen to push through a drastic tightening of immigration law, which her party boasted made Denmark “Europe’s strictest” country for immigration. 
 
Kjærsgaard has frequently generated controversy, accusing foreigners of “breeding like rabbits”, arguing that the 9/11 attacks did not represent a clash of civilisations as only one side was civilised, and accusing Muslim migrants of having “no desire whatsoever to take part in Danishness”, and of having “contempt for everything Western”. She has said that Islam “with fundamentalist tendencies” should be “fought to the highest degree”, condemning the religion as “medieval”. In 2020, she tried to blame minority communities for a city-wide outbreak of Covid-19 in Aarhus.

She was reported to the police in 2002 for referring to Muslims as people who “lie, cheat and deceive” in her party’s weekly newsletter, but was never prosecuted. 

The Danish People’s Party’s current leader, Morten Messerschmidt, had warm words for his party’s founder following her announcement. 

“Pia has not only been a colleague and a friend, but also an inspiration to me and many others,” he wrote on X. “Her unwavering commitment, fighting spirit and courage have characterised Danish politics for several decades.” 

Since Kjærsgaard stood down in 2012, support for the once powerful party has collapsed, with its share of the vote falling from 21 percent in the 2015 election to just 2.6 percent of the vote in the last national election in 2022.  

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