The Great Nordic Thread
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Poll
Question: Will Iceland and Norway ever join the EU?
#1
Iceland, but not Norway
 
#2
Norway, but not Iceland
 
#3
Both
 
#4
None of them
 
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Total Voters: 178

Author Topic: The Great Nordic Thread  (Read 201093 times)
Helsinkian
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« Reply #875 on: June 11, 2016, 11:23:32 AM »

Alexander Stubb, Finland's Finance Minister and leader of the National Coalition Party, will face two challengers in next June's party convention: Petteri Orpo, Minister of the Interior, and Elina Lepomäki, MP. Orpo is not only seen as having a realistic chance of beating Stubb but he is becoming the favourite to win, as he has racked up endorsements and leads Stubb in an opinion poll conducted among the party's members.

NCP members feel that the party's policies are not sufficiently represented in the current coalition's actions, and they are also unhappy at Stubb's inability to grow the party's support. One could note, though, that the members of the Finns Party have more reason to complain on both counts, yet no one is trying to oust Timo Soini.

In the convention vote today Petteri Orpo was elected the NCP chairman with 55 percent to Stubb's 45 percent on the second round. On the first round the results were Orpo 49, Stubb 36, Lepomäki 15
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CrabCake
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« Reply #876 on: June 11, 2016, 02:20:41 PM »

Will Stubb resign from the cabinet or be demoted?
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Helsinkian
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« Reply #877 on: June 11, 2016, 02:59:55 PM »

Not clear yet. Orpo will become the Finance Minister but he'll probably allow Stubb to take one of the three other ministerial portfolios the NCP has if that's what Stubb wants.
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Helsinkian
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« Reply #878 on: June 15, 2016, 04:08:46 AM »

Not clear yet. Orpo will become the Finance Minister but he'll probably allow Stubb to take one of the three other ministerial portfolios the NCP has if that's what Stubb wants.

Orpo offered him the position of another minister but Stubb turned it down, and he will thus leave the cabinet entirely. If I had to guess, I'd say that he'll leave the country within a year; he's a cosmopolitan  by nature.
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Diouf
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« Reply #879 on: June 17, 2016, 04:23:49 PM »
« Edited: June 20, 2016, 11:50:02 AM by Diouf »

DPP now says that they will go into government after the next election if they get a similar result as in 2015 and there is still a blue bloc majority. DPP leader Thulelsen Dahl says that there is no problem in still supporting the Liberal Løkke Rasmussen as PM in such a case.

Their Foreign Policy spokesperson Søren Espersen said today that Denmark should follow Britain out of the EU. It is not completely clear yet that this is the official position as there have been quite some back and forward on this topic from different leading members of the party. However, advocating a Danish exit was always the logical solution in such a case, since a clear majority of the party's voters would be in favour of that, and because of the threat from the Nye Borgerlige (New Right) who clearly advocate Denmark leaving the EU. Perhaps the DPP will put this in their manifesto for the next general election. It seems somewhat unlikely that a majority in parliament would accept a referendum soon, but it is hard to predict a post-Brexit world. The public pressure for a referendum might be too big, but I guess most politicians from the pro-EU parties would at least recommend waiting and see what the British end up with.
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Helsinkian
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« Reply #880 on: June 22, 2016, 03:56:45 AM »

In Finland, a Finns Party MP, Maria Tolppanen, has announced that she's defecting to the Social Democrats. She cited the government's austerity policies as the reason.

This goes to show that it's inaccurate to label the Finns Party simply as a "far-right" party; far-right MPs rarely go on to become Social Democrats.
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Helsinkian
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« Reply #881 on: June 30, 2016, 03:08:57 PM »

A new opinion poll finds little support for "Fixit" (Finnish EU exit): if there were a referendum, 68% would vote to stay in the EU, and 21% would vote to leave.
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Diouf
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« Reply #882 on: August 23, 2016, 02:14:33 PM »

MP Aleqa Hammond, former Greenlandic Prime Minister, excluded from Siumut after another expenses scandal



One of the two Greenlandic MPs, Aleqa Hammond, has been excluded by her party Siumut after she was found to have used her parliamentary credit card on private expenses. The amount used is not gigantic, 13 000dkr (1 750 euro), but due to her history of fraud and expenses scandals, her party Siumut has decided to exclude her. They have stated that they wish for her to resign from parliament, but she states that she will stay as an Independent MP.

In 1994, working as a regional coordinator for Greenland tourism, she knowingly used a blocked credit card to cover a couple of hotel bills and was convicted of fraud. In 2008, as Greenlandic Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs, she drunkly ran away from a taxa bill. However, the biggest case by far happened during her reign as Greenlandic PM from 2013 to 2014. She used 106 363 dkr (14 250 euros) of parliamentary expenses to pay for non-work related airline tickets for herself and hotel costs for her family. She had to resign as PM after this case. In 2015, she was Siumut's lead candidate in the elections to the Danish parliament, and was elected with 3 745 votes, the highest number of personal votes in Greenland.
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ingemann
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« Reply #883 on: August 30, 2016, 09:13:03 AM »

http://cphpost.dk/news/government-unveils-new-2025-economic-strategy.html

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It's not meantioned in the article but they plan to fund it partly by raising the pension age in 2025, cutting the education support grants (while raising the amount students can loan interest free, until they finish their education or drop out).
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DavidB.
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« Reply #884 on: August 31, 2016, 06:37:40 AM »

Helsinkian, how is the Finnish economy doing now? Better?
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Helsinkian
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« Reply #885 on: August 31, 2016, 10:25:50 AM »

Helsinkian, how is the Finnish economy doing now? Better?

Not by much, I think... Unemployment has remained high and the predictions say that the economic growth will continue to be slow.
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Diouf
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« Reply #886 on: September 14, 2016, 08:02:57 AM »

Seems like the migration debate is splitting the Swedish Liberals.

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http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6516577
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Diouf
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« Reply #887 on: September 16, 2016, 03:13:40 PM »
« Edited: September 19, 2016, 05:37:37 AM by Diouf »

The governing Blue Bloc in Denmark is caught up in a lot of internal quabbling at the moment. The Liberal Alliance has played tough for several weeks, demanding that the top income tax rate is reduced by five percent for everybody, so that earnings above a million dkr are included as well, unlike the government's proposal. If they don't get that, they say that they will take down the government. A really weird ultimatum, since a new election would make it at best no more likely that the top rate is reduced somewhat, and most likely would just lead to a Social Democrat government. There is no way near a majority in parliament for reducing the top tax rate, and certainly not for incomes above a million. So if any top tax rate reduction will happen, it will in all likelyhood be a lower one than that proposed by the government.

The DPP has now grown so tired of the Liberal Alliance, that they have said that there will be no more negotiations about the government's 2025 plan before the Liberal Alliance withdraws its ultimatum. Relatively smart move by the DPP in that it captures the public mood very well; there is of course no majority in the public for these top tax rate reductions and most people are tired of hearing about the Liberal Alliance's top tax demands. I expected the Liberal Alliance to back down as quietly as possible from their demand at some point during the negotiations, probably at the very end when a deal was made. But now DPP shines all the light on LA, so either they will be publicly humiliated by withdrawing their demand or they will take down the government due to failing to hit an impossible goal, and instead bring to power a red government.

I think, the DPP is the only party in the Blue Bloc that might have some interest in an election now. It could manifest them as the biggest party in the Blue Bloc by winning that position for the second time in a row and they would no longer have to support PM Løkke Rasmussen who is unpopular among DPP voters. But still, there is 2.5 years left of the government's term, and despite them not getting as much influence as hoped for, it is not certain that they will get more influence with a Social Democrat government. So I still believe that the logical thing for the Blue Bloc parties would be to calm down, and come together, but the main players do not seem to have a very good chemistry, so it can't be ruled out that there will be a premature election.

Short Reuters story her: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-denmark-politics-idUSKCN11P0SM
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Diouf
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« Reply #888 on: September 21, 2016, 03:33:45 PM »

New Right has collected enough signatures to run



The new Danish far-right party Nye Borgerlige (New Right) has collected the 20.000 signatures which enables them to run in the next general election. Now they only need a few administrative details, and to get their preferred letter, D, approved. Then the pollsters should start including them then, and we can start to gauge their electoral potential. I think they will have quite good chances to pass the 2% threshold. They are basically like the old Fremskridtspartiet (Progress Party) 2.0; very right wing on both economy, EU and immigration. The last subject is unsurprisingly the most prominent topic for them; as their three most important issues party leader Pernille Vermund mentions suspending the possibility to get asylum in Denmark, withdrawing from the refugee and human right conventions, and stop all payments of any public benefits to all immigrants. On the EU, they predictably want a referendum, where they will support Denmark leaving the EU. On economy, they would like to reduce or remove most taxes, but still say that the weakest should be supported, though they don't specify. Mostly the way to finance all the tax cuts is due to the all the money that would be saved from not paying to immigrants.

They already have around 2 000 members and 8 councillors. Mostly the personel seems to come from the Liberal Alliance and the DPP, but in some ways the might be able to draw voters from all the right wing parties. From the DPP, they can attract some of the former Progress Party members and others, who have accepted centrist or even centre-leftist economic policies due to their tough immigration and EU policies. There might even be those that simply believes that the DPP has become too soft, and has not get enough of their policies through with the blue majority. In LA, politicus has previously described the small pockets of far-right thought, and there definitively are some who thinks they are not Eurosceptic enough, they just suggested that they might recommend a yes in a new and somewhat more restrictive EU justice opt-in referendum, and focus too little on the problem of immigration, even if their policies are quite tough, e.g. a two-year asylum stop. Party leader Pernille Vermund is a former Conservative, and received 2 000 personal votes in Northern Zealand for them in the 2015 election, so there could be some potential for attracting Conservative voters as well. Many of the voters wanting more extreme policies have probably already left the party, but even small losses of voters are significant for a party that recently polled only 2.1%. Finally, the Liberals are currently the only government party, so there is perhaps also some potential for attracting some dissatisfied voters from there.
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Diouf
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« Reply #889 on: September 22, 2016, 09:01:47 AM »



Today, the New Right had its first press conference after collecting the signatures. To the left is party leader Pernille Vermund and to the right deputy leader Peter Seier Christensen, whose brother is the CEO of Saxo Bank who for long was the primary funder of the Liberal Alliance.
They said that they would only support a PM if he accepted their three key demands; stopping the possibility for getting asylum in Denmark, that after two years foreigners should not be able to get any benefits from the state, and all criminal foreigners should be expelled after their first sentence. So if that holds, then the only PM they could potentially support would be a DPP one, although even the DPP might not fulfil it all completely at the moment.

The party wants to remove islam from the public space, which means closing all mosques, removing halal meat, making it illegal to wear muslim clothing like burqaes, veils, headscarfes etc. They stated the headscarf would only be illegal for muslims, and was a bit wrongfooted when asked what if a woman wears it and states that she is not a muslim. After not answering a few times, the response was that it would be "a specific judgement". All of these changes would of course require changing the Danish Constitution with regards to freedom of religion, which is not exactly an easy process.

They want to leave the EU; it is interesting whether they will push the DPP to take this firm position as well. The DPP generally talks about reforming the EU, but not quitting it, although of course in practice they reject every single EU proposal and campaign for no in all EU referendums, even on topics like the common patent, which they supported until it became a public issue. The DPP is more less able to match almost anything the New Right comes up with on immigration and islam, but this question of EU membership is quite a significant difference. It is very possible that the DPP will try to match that by suggesting clearly to leave the EU as well. Then they can claim to be equal to them on immigration and EU policies, while being much more socially responsible. A strategy they already seem to be employing.

They want to lower taxes significantly, but, unlike on the immigration area, they seem quite focused on not looking to extreme. Questions was asked to an internal economic policy memo in the party, which suggests removing the public pensions and only allowing persons to get cash benefits for eight months, after that no state benefits at all. The memo has caused some of the former DPPers, including two councillors, to leave the party again, as they had apparently only read the parts about being tougher on immigration and EU, but not about the very right wing economic policy. However, when confronted with the memo, the party leaders said that it was not their economic policy, and that is was something written by someone not in the party.
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DavidB.
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« Reply #890 on: September 22, 2016, 10:18:58 AM »

The party wants to remove islam from the public space, which means closing all mosques, removing halal meat, making it illegal to wear muslim clothing like burqaes, veils, headscarfes etc. They stated the headscarf would only be illegal for muslims, and was a bit wrongfooted when asked what if a woman wears it and states that she is not a muslim. After not answering a few times, the response was that it would be "a specific judgement". All of these changes would of course require changing the Danish Constitution with regards to freedom of religion, which is not exactly an easy process.
That is pretty radical. For advocating these same policies, the PVV has been excluded by other parties on the Dutch right. I understand the Danish system works differently, but would Venstre, the Conservatives and the Liberal Alliance rule out any type of government cooperation with D?
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Diouf
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« Reply #891 on: September 22, 2016, 12:03:03 PM »

The party wants to remove islam from the public space, which means closing all mosques, removing halal meat, making it illegal to wear muslim clothing like burqaes, veils, headscarfes etc. They stated the headscarf would only be illegal for muslims, and was a bit wrongfooted when asked what if a woman wears it and states that she is not a muslim. After not answering a few times, the response was that it would be "a specific judgement". All of these changes would of course require changing the Danish Constitution with regards to freedom of religion, which is not exactly an easy process.
That is pretty radical. For advocating these same policies, the PVV has been excluded by other parties on the Dutch right. I understand the Danish system works differently, but would Venstre, the Conservatives and the Liberal Alliance rule out any type of government cooperation with D?

Government cooperation in the shape of creating a coalition government is not on the table, but they would probably accept them as parliamentary support to a government if that was offered. Most of what they say is not that far from what the DPP has said previously, although the DPP now mostly try to propose laws that are not clearly in violation of the Constitution, e.g. two days ago they proposed a ban on "religious headwear" in schools.  A Liberal spokesperson today said that the New Right's ideas were not a view that would be supported by his party or even shared the same view of humans, but that "no seats smell worse than others" in connection with a possible majority.
However, at least Venstre (Liberals) and the Conservatives will not accept the demands the New Right has made for supporting a PM, so if they stick to those demands, then the party will de facto be isolated as it will not be part of a governing majority.
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Diouf
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« Reply #892 on: September 23, 2016, 05:36:12 AM »
« Edited: September 27, 2016, 05:13:06 AM by Diouf »

Three early polls suggest the chances for the New Right are as good as expected, although it is still very early. The polls are all made yesterday on a day with lots of attention for the party, and maybe before some, especially former DPP, voters look closer at their economic policies.

YouGov for Metroxpress gives them 4.3%
Megafon for TV2 and Politiken gives them 4.9%
Gallup for Berlingske gives them 2.1%

The voters primarily come from DPP, LA and the Liberals in that order, although the shares differ from pollster to pollster since it is very few actual respondents we are dealing with.
The New Right's entrance should make it even less likely that any of the Blue Bloc parties want an early election, and therefore make it more likely that they will reach some kind of agreement on a 2025 plan, which the government has proposed. Although, of course I did not really see many advantages of an election for them before, so it is perhaps marginal how much the incentives have changes for them.

Each poll's description of where the New Right's voters come from. Again, remember the very low number of respondents, particularly for the Gallup poll:




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Diouf
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« Reply #893 on: October 04, 2016, 01:50:51 PM »
« Edited: October 04, 2016, 02:25:34 PM by Diouf »

Some nice pictures from the opening of Parliament today from Thomas Lekfeldt/Scanprix for Altinget.dk:



Speaker Pia Kjærsgaard (DF) welcoming the queen, those to her right are the deputy speakers.



Two of the grand old persons in Danish politics. To the left, Mogens Lykketoft (S), MP since 1981, Finance Minister 93-00, Foreign Minister 00-01, party leader 02-05, just finished one-year term as President of the United Nations General Assembly. To the right, Marianne Jelved (R) MP since 1987, Minister of Economic Affairs 93-01, party leader 90-07.



Minister of immigration Inger Støjberg (V)



Leaders of the three biggest parties. Kristian Thulelsen Dahl (DF) to the left, PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen (V) in the middle, Mette Frederiksen (S) to the right.



Rasmus Jarlov (K) photographed with the two Greenlandic MPs; to the left Aaja Chemnitz Larsen (IA) and to the right Aleqa Hammond (Independent).



The republican members enter parliament after the royals have arrived in their box, so they avoid having to rise for them. They are MPs from the non-Social Democrat left wing parties.



The painting behind the speaker's chair is being repaired, so while the repair is going on, Speaker Pia Kjærsgaard decided to put up a big Danish flag.



The main media interest was about the Liberal Alliance leader Anders Samuelsen, who continues to play hardball about his demands for top tax rate reductions. Yesterday, he said that he should have taken down the government already in the end of August, when it presented a 2025 plan that did not include a 5% top tax rate reduction for everybody, it excluded those earning more than a million dkr. Maintained his demand that this reduction for everybody should be agreed before christmas, if not he will take down the government.
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Diouf
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« Reply #894 on: October 20, 2016, 04:47:08 AM »

High-profile DPP MEP Morten Messerschmidt again in the spotlight for misusing EU-funds. This time it might hurt the DPP a bit more than his last scandal because the story has dominated political coverage for more than a week now, with new small stories emerging each day of how EU-funds were misused and because the DPP top seems more involved this time. A new poll from Wilke for Jyllands-Posten had them at 16.2%, the lowest poll result since the 2015 election. It was conducted in the middle of this media storm, so the final effect will probably be less, but it does give the New Right a better opportunity to establish itself as there might be some DPP voters who can be convinced right now.

http://www.politico.eu/article/morten-messerschmidt-danish-people-party-danish-anti-fraud-mep-accused-of-misusing-eu-funds-again/
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Diouf
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« Reply #895 on: November 02, 2016, 06:08:25 AM »

The last three polls from Voxmeter, Megafon and YouGov have the DPP at 15.8, 15.9 and 14.5%. So at the moment the DPP have lost around 30% of their voters since the 2015 general election. These three polls were all made after the two week long focus on the EU expenses scandal in the DPP, so in a month or two, I would expect them to bounce a bit back, but they would still be significantly below their (historically great) 2015 result. The beneficiaries from the DPP fall differs somewhat from pollster to pollster, but in most the Liberal are back up around their (poor) 2015 result of 19.5%, the New Right gains further ground and get above 3%, and the Red Bloc gains a bit, so the polls now fluctuate between a narrow red majority and a clear red majority.

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After little movement in the negotiations, the government is forced to put their big 2025 plan on hold. The 2017 budget was meant to be a minor part of these negotiations, but the deadline for passing the budget is mid-November, so if that deadline is to be kept, they need to focus on that now. Getting an agreement which fulfills the Liberal Alliance's tax demand seems almost impossible, so if LA stick to their word, the government will fall right after New Year. I believe, the only real precedent for a support party taking down its own government in modern times, is 1975, when the anarchist Progress Party took down the Liberal minority government ushering in a seven-year Social Democrat reign.

http://www.politico.eu/newsletter/playbook/politico-brussels-playbook-presented-by-pfizer-oettinger-fallout-continues-eu-china-tit-for-tat/
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Diouf
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« Reply #896 on: November 18, 2016, 10:01:05 AM »
« Edited: November 18, 2016, 02:03:04 PM by Diouf »

Blue Bloc parties agree on 2017 Budget



The Blue Men's Club has reached an agreement on the 2017 budget. The DPP managed to increase the funds for improved elderly care and for the temporary border control. Naturally, they have also achieved tougher rules on refugees and immigration; it will be more difficult to achieve a permanent residence permit and more money will be spent on deporting rejected asylum seekers and other illegal immigrants. The Liberal Alliance achieved a further decrease of the car tax as well as increasing the subsidies for private schools, while the Conservatives again managed to freeze the local property taxes. Other important aspects is increased funds for cancer treatment and research, an increase in the number of policemen trained a year and a new short term "police cadet" education to perform lighter police tasks to release real policemen for other tasks.

The government's negotiations have flown rather quickly since it postponed its ambitious 2025 plan, yesterday the government made a broad agreement on the new system for energy subsidies, and later today they will agree on a new property valuation system. The Liberal government will be happy to show some competence and results after months of inertia, especially before the Liberal conference this weekend. However, now that these agreements have been made, the attention will revert to the top tax battle, where the Liberal Alliance insists it will take down the government if 5% top tax rate reductions for all high earners are not agreed upon before the New Year. Something that seems almost impossible for the DPP to agree on, even more so as they have already lost many voters after their EU expenses scandal.

Several political commentators wrote yesterday about the possibility of the creation of a new government to overcome these difficulties, so someone have probably been briefing that around pretty clearly. That government would consist of the Liberals, the Liberal Alliance and the Conservatives. The benefits are clear: negotiations in the Blue Bloc will then only be between the Government and the DPP instead of between the government and three different parties. In that way, the situation would be similar to how the situation was in 2001-2011. The Conservatives were quite adamant after the 2015 election that they were not entering the government due to their poor result, but their fortunes have not really improved outside government, so perhaps they now see government participation as an at least equally good chance of improving their standing. For the Liberal Alliance it might be a gentle way to back down from their aggressive threats of taking down the government; because if, as it seems likely, they do not get their top tax reductions, they would either have to take down their government or look very humiliated for not doing it. However, there are a number of caveats, which makes it less likely that such a government reorganisation will happen. The government programme would have to become more right-wing economically for the two new parties to defend their participation. This could hurt the Liberals, who are probably already seen as being somewhat too right-wing on economy by the median voter. Also it would make economic negotiations with the DPP even more difficult. Government participation would probably also make the Liberal Alliance more susceptible to loss of voters to the New Right, which can mock the LA for not getting through enough tax cuts and reductions of poublic spending. So all things considered, I lean towards it not happening, but perhaps the chaotic 2025 negotiations have made the parties much more favourably inclined to a broader government.
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« Reply #897 on: November 19, 2016, 03:56:52 PM »

PM invites Liberal Alliance and Conservatives to join government

At the first speech of the Liberal conference, the party leader and PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen listed the achievements of the Liberal government in its first one and a half year, but then concluded that further progress would be most likely to happen if the government was broadened to include the Liberal Alliance and the Conservatives. This is in particular to get past the top tax rate debacle, that was threatening to take down the government with the Liberal Alliance and the DPP pulling the government in different directions. It seems like LA is willing to ditch their ultimatum of 5% top tax rate reductions for all high earners if they are allowed into the government. The Conservatives seems less eager to join the government than LA, but there must be a common understanding that an agreement can be reached with all three parties for the PM to announce it.

The negotiations will start on Monday, and it will be interesting to see how far right the new government programme will move economically, and what changes will happen personnel-wise. There are a few older man in the current Liberal government, and particular the Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen has been the subject of quite a few retirement rumours. The PM gave him a special greeting in his speech for the work he had done in agreeing on many deals during this government, which sounded somewhat like a farewell greeting. Although I would hope for someone like Health Minister Sophie Løhde to take over as finance minister, the most likely scenario is probably that Løkke's good friend Defence Minister Peter Christensen will take over. Christensen was touted as a likely Finance Minister before the 2015 election, but did not figure in the original government after failing to be elected MP. However, when the Defence Minister had to resign quickly, the PM's reliable friend was brought into the government. Presumably there will be some division of responsibilities in the finance and economy ministries, so that the Liberal Alliance and Conservative party leaders can both get a decent economy-related ministry, while the Liberal retain the Finance Ministry post.
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DavidB.
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« Reply #898 on: November 19, 2016, 10:43:35 PM »

Thanks for these updates, Diouf!
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Diouf
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« Reply #899 on: November 27, 2016, 12:11:57 PM »

Agreement on new three-clover government: New Cabinet presented tomorrow



Today, the Liberals, the Liberal Alliance and the Conservatives reached agreement on forming a new government. The Government programme for the new government includes the following things: less regulations for companies, a more effective public sector with limited or no increase in funding, lower income taxes (both the bottom and top rate), lower study grants, cut the state broadcaster DR down in size, 50% of Danish energy demand in 2030 should come from renewable energy, more funds for the military, harder punishments for violent crimes, move more government agencies from Copenhagen to other parts of the country, change rules to give disruptive and innovative companies better possibilities (recent court sentences have made it hard for Uber to function in Denmark).

One pundit called it the most right-wing government since Madsen-Mygdal in 1926-1929. That might be true, but most economic proposals will be diluted by negotiations with the DPP or the Social Democrats. It will be interesting to see how the Liberal Alliance, hitherto largely a ultraliberal protest party, will handle being in government, particularly once its high ambitions are watered down in negotiations. Already, many have been puzzled by their sudden change from "5 % top tax rate reductions for everybody or we take down the government" to responsible government party willing to compromise. It should give great opportunities for the newest protest party, the New Right, which is even more hardcore right wing on economy. Additionally, the government EU-policy is quite standard pro-EU without much trace of the light Euroscepticism of the Liberal Alliance, another issue where the New Right, favouring complete EU-withdrawal, can attack them.

The new cabinet will be presented for the Queen tomorrow. We don't know the names yet, but it will expand in size from 17 to 22 (13 V, 6 LA, 3K). I think and hope there will be a bigger gender parity in this new cabinet; perhaps the Liberals will make a smaller generational change as well. The focus will be on the Finance Ministry in particular, where the 69-year old Claus Hjort Frederiksen might not continue. The question then is whether Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen, deputy leader and Løkke rival, will get the post or whether a Løkke loyalist like Peter Christensen or Troels Lund Poulsen will take over. Some see this as a proxy for whether there will be a full-blown leadership battle once Løkke is no longer Liberal leader; if Jensen gets it Løkke accepts that he will take over after him, if Jensen does not get it, it suggests that Løkke would support another against Jensen once that time comes. In the end, Hjort Frederiksen might stay simply to avoid this problem. It will also be interesting to see whether some of the more controversial Liberal Alliance MPs become ministers.
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