Danes to Try Out First Grand Coalition Government Since 1970s

Christian Wienberg
·2 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Denmark has formed a new government, its first so-called grand coalition since the 1970s, after the longest talks to form a cabinet in the Nordic country’s modern history.

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The Social Democrats will lead the coalition with Mette Frederiksen, 45, continuing as prime minister, she said in broadcast comments on Tuesday. In a rare turn of events, her party will share power with its traditional opponent, the center-right Liberals as well as the Moderates. She plans to present the cabinet’s political agenda on Wednesday before introducing a lineup of ministers on Thursday.

While Frederiksen had secured a majority together with her left-leaning bloc in the tight general election on Nov. 1, the prolonged talks left Denmark without a permanent government for 42 days, beating the previous record of 35 days set in 1975. The suspension has prevented the country from passing new legislation to address the challenges facing the economy and hampered the cabinet’s participation in meetings and events abroad.

“There will be many compromises,” Frederiksen said, underscoring the difficulty of the talks. “We have high ambitions to increase employment, to get more people into jobs and we have high ambitions for the climate,” she said.

The constellation will be welcomed by industry groups who’ve called for a parliamentary alliance spanning the political spectrum on the expectation it would have a better ability to push through economic reforms, including on the labor market. Denmark has faced a severe shortage of workers for much of the past decade.

Grand coalitions, where the two largest parties of opposing political ideologies unite, are a rarity in Denmark and the last such grouping only lasted 14 months in 1978. The Social Democrats and the Liberals traditionally have taken turns ruling the country in minority cabinets, with the support from their blocs of parties from the left or from the right. Still, Danish governments have a history of including the opposition for any major legislation.

Frederiksen was forced to call early elections due to protests over her botched handling of the cull of the country’s 17 million farmed mink during the pandemic. In the election campaign, both the Liberals and the Moderates had called for a new investigation into the prime minister’s role, but they dropped that request over the weekend, paving the way for a partnership.

The Moderates were formed this year by former prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen with the main purpose of working for a grand coalition, something Frederiksen had during the campaign pledged she would explore.

(Updates to add more comments from Frederiksen in fourth paragraph, details on mink in seventh)

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