Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Denmark

  • Support for Anti-EU Parties Falls During Pandemic

    European flags Brussels
    Flags of the European Union outside the Berlaymont building in Brussels, July 22, 2016 (European Commission)

    If the coronavirus pandemic is giving Europeans doubts about the EU, it isn’t showing up in support for Euroskeptic parties. (more…)

  • What Can Danes Teach Europe’s Social Democrats?

    Mette Frederiksen
    Danish Social Democratic Party leader Mette Frederiksen gives a speech in Allinge-Sandvig on the island of Bornholm, June 16, 2017 (News Øresund/Sofie Paisley)

    The victory of Denmark’s Social Democrats in the election on Wednesday would some seem to vindicate leader Mette Frederiksen’s lurch to the right. She hardened her party’s policy on immigration and supported such far-right proposals as a ban on prayer rooms in schools and universities.

    A closer look at the campaign she ran, as well as the election result, reveals a more nuanced picture. (more…)

  • Social Democrats in Iberia and Scandinavia Try Opposite Strategies

    António Costa Pedro Sánchez
    Prime Minister António Costa of Portugal greets his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez, in Lisbon, July 2 (Governo da República Portuguesa/Clara Azevedo)

    What is the future of European social democracy? Your answer may depend on where you live.

    If you’re in the Mediterranean, it’s cooperation with the far left. Social democrats in Portugal and Spain have come to power under deals with far-left parties. In both cases, unwieldy coalitions were greeted with skepticism, but now Prime Ministers António Costa and Pedro Sánchez are riding high in the polls.

    In Greece, Alexis Tsipras’ Syriza party has even supplanted the center-left altogether.

    In Scandinavia, by contrast, social democrats are trying to win back working-class voters by taking a harder line on borders, crime and defense.

    Both strategies appear to be working. (more…)

  • Denmark’s Left Must Find Balance Between Nativists and Progressives

    Danish parliament Copenhagen
    Christiansborg Palace, seat of the Danish parliament, in Copenhagen (Shutterstock)

    Denmark’s Social Democrats are eying cooperation with the nationalist People’s Party which they have shunned for years.

    Under Mette Frederiksen, who took over the party leadership after its 2015 election defeat, the center-left has supported such far-right policies as a ban on prayer rooms in schools and universities.

    The two parties, who are both in opposition to a liberal minority government, have also made common cause against raising the pension age.

    Frederiksen argues she is defending the Danish welfare state from the challenges of globalization.

    Her strategy is not too dissimilar from her Swedish counterpart’s. Stefan Löfven, the ruling Social Democratic Party leader in Stockholm, has taken a hard line on border control, crime and defense in a bid to stem working-class defections to the far right. (more…)

  • Danish Energy Sale to Goldman Sachs Meets Resistance

    Years of conservative rule ended in Denmark with the 2011 election of Social Democratic Party leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt, whose coalition also included the Social Liberal Party and Socialist People’s Party. Two years later, the Socialist People’s Party left the coalition over the decision to sell 18 percent of DONG Energy, the nation’s largest energy company, to investment bank Goldman Sachs.

    Finance minister Bjarne Corydon backed the decision, arguing that the move makes green energy a financially sustainable option, while former Social Democrat premier Poul Nyrup Rasmussen opposed the sale, calling Goldman a “shady partner.”

    Protesters threw the image of a vampire squid over the statue of a former king, a nod to Matt Taibbi’s remark in Rolling Stone magazine that Goldman was a “great vampire squid” feeding on cash instead of blood. (more…)