Danish Elections and Politics

[Diouf]

Jakob Ellemann has stated that things are moving in the right direction with his stress illness, and that he is looking forward to returning to politics once he is fully ready. For these first weeks of his absence, Troels Lund Poulsen has been both Minister of Economy and Minister of Defence, but now as the absence is becoming a longer one, Lund Poulsen will only be Minister of Defence. Instead, the Liberal deputy leader and leader of the Southern Region, Stephanie Lose, will take over Lund Poulsen's normal job as Minister of Economy. Lose will then take leave as Regional Leader, but says that she has no intentions to seek towards national politics, but wanted to do this temporary job for the party and then return to regional politics.

https://twitter.com/Forsvarsmin/status/1633833011711180801

The colourful bunch of characters in the Moderates are again grabbing some headline for how they carried out their jobs before entering politics. A newspaper has published a sound file of MP Jon Stephensen falsifiying a signature of one of the board members, back when he was theatre manager at Aveny-T. It wasn't to do something nefarious with the document, but apparently a document for an agency in order to move an application along, which had been stuck for a while due to a board member's absence from some meetings. But of course still not a good look. And then recently, TV2 added fuel to the fire with a collection of accounts accusing him of creating a unsafe working environment, due to frequent anger bursts, not keeping labour law in relation to pregnancies, and not respecting young female actors' wishes to avoid an overly sexualized promotion of plays.

[Jens]

Fun times at Nye Borgerlige.
Yesterday the board expelled the party chairman Lars Boye Mathiesen from the party!
The reasons was that he demanded an additional 55.000 DK kr per month (7400 Euro) as a chairman salary on top of his pay as a MP and that he should be handed sole control of a sum of money (350.000 DK kr (47.000 euro)) that was donated to the party

This leaves NB with only 3 members of parliament, which means that they loose party benefits

https://www.altinget.dk/artikel/lars-boje-ekskluderet-laes-hele-mailen-til-nye-borgerliges-medlemmer

[Diouf]

New Right's founder and party leader until recently, Pernille Vermund, has just returned from one of the many long holidays, she has held since her resignation, and announced her willingness to return as leader. The two other remaining MPs have already come out in support of her, along with several councillors. If she wants to take the long haul for the party, then there's probably some hope left for the party. She seemed very eager to get out of the position, and maybe looking for a job in the private sector, when the election resulted in another term in opposition.

Pernille Vermund did not receive an additional chairman salary while she was leader, but some other parties do (between 20-50.000 a month). Lars Boje says that due to living near Aarhus and having two children, his wife would need to take leave from her job to make the family life work, when he was to spend additional time as party leader. Therefore he needed additional funds to cover the salary, she used to earn. Boje says the 350.000 kr were funds donated for him, but just formally placed on a party account in order to be sure to follow rules regarding audit and taxation of funds. Therefore, he believes he should have been handed control of them.

Lars Boje also states that the members must decide who were right, him or the board, which seems like a suggestion for party members to take down the board and bring him back, like it happened in a similar situation in the Vegan Party some months ago. However, it seems very unlikely to me. Most in the party would probably prefer some calm now, and with Vermund willing to return as leader, I think the large majority of the party members would support her and get on with it. The party board, which unanimously decided to expel Lars Boje, includes all 3 of the party's remaining MPs, so they were all behind the decision.

[DavidB.]

New right-wing parties not pointlessly self-destructing challenge (literally impossible)

[Diouf]

The Moderates get their first MEP. Bergur Løkke Rasmussen changes from the Liberals to the party his dad founded. He received 11 615 personal votes in the 2019 European election, which was enough for him to become fifth of the Liberal candidates. The party won four MEPs, but after the 2022 general election, where two of the Liberal MEPs became MPs, Bergur took over as MEP. He is also a regional councillor in the Copenhagen region. If the Moderates are not able to attract some big name to next year's European election, Bergur Løkke Rasmussen could be good guess as their lead candidate.

The Red-Green Alliance has just announced their candidates for the EP election. Current MEP Nikolaj Villumsen cannot run due to the party's rotation rules. Instead the biggest name is 68-year old Per Clausen, who was a MP from 2005-2015, and is currently a local councillor in Aalborg. Villumsen's chief of staff, 31-year old Frederikke Hellemann, is also among the eight candidates. The party has announced a list of eight candidates, but the lead candidate will not be elected among them before late May.

[Diouf]

Agreement on Ukraine Foundation

Today the government, SPP, Denmark Democrats, Liberal Alliance, Conservatives, Social Liberals, DPP and New Right agreed a deal to set up a Ukraine Foundation worth 7 billion DKK in 2023. The Foundation will coordinate the military, civic and business support for Ukraine.

Around 5.4 billion DKK funds are to be spend on military support for Ukraine in 2023. This will include weapons, vehicles, training of Ukrainian soldiers etc. The civic support for Ukraine will cost 1.2 billion DKK, and will be a mixture of emergency, humanitarian help as well as support for re-building Ukrainian cities. Finally, 0.4 billion DKK will be spent on business support, primarily as guarantees for a new loan facility, which will cover loans to Danish companies investing in rebuilding projects in Ukraine. Most of the funds (5.6 billion DKK) are simply found in the current funds, 1.2 billion DKK is taken from the development aid budget while the last 0.2 billion DKK are taken from the army's budget for international operations.

https://twitter.com/DRNyheder/status/1635923558152142850

[Diouf]

Red-Green Alliance wants electoral alliance with SPP and Alternative in 2024 European elections

Red-Green leader Mai Villadsen today announced in an Information interview that she wants to pursue a big greenleft electoral alliance for the 2024 European elections. In 2019, the party ran in an electoral alliance with the People's Movement against EU. The alliance won one seat, which went to the Red-Greens as the biggest party in the alliance. The People's Movement against EU is trying to become eligible to run in 2024, but that doesn't seem likely. They need 70 680 signatures, and currently they only have 4 381. So that's a significant explanation for why the Red-Green Alliance are seeking out new alliance partners. With their current polls, they would be just around the threshold for a seat if they run alone.

Villadsen says that with the Social Democrats moving right, it's crucial to show a greenleft alternative with SPP and Alternative. She also argues that with their new EU position, "not actively working to get Denmark out of EU", the distance to the two other parties is smaller. And that the work in the EP is really about climate policy, labour market policy, immigration etc., where the parties are working in the same direction.

However, it doesn't seem that likely that the two parties would go along. I think the gap between their pro-EU stances, and the Red-Greens Euroscepticism is still too big. Alternative leader Franciska Rosenkilde says: "In relation to the EU, the Alternative and the Red-Greens have historically been placed far apart. We are very settled about our position on the EU question, and in the most recent referendum supported a yes to remove the EU defence opt-out, while the Red-Greens were opposed. We are very positive about using EU to achieve green change far outside our own borders."
SPP hasn't commented yet.

My current guess on electoral alliances for 2024 would be
Liberals, Liberal Alliance & Conservatives
Social Democrats
SPP & Alternative
Social Liberals + Moderates
Denmark Democrats
Red-Green Alliance
DPP + New Right

[ingemann]

Danish voters: "I can excuse hostile anti immigration policies but I draw the line at cutting the number of public holidays!"

What's weird about: "I can excuse policies I support, but I draw the line at policies I don't support."? The anti-(MENA)-immigration policies are widely popular among most of the population, because there's a general consensus backed by facts that MENA immigration have been a net negative for Denmark.

[Diouf]

Christian Democrats elects business man as new leader - wants to give parliament another try

58-year old business man Jeppe Hedaa was yesterday elected as the new leader of the Christian Democrats. He hasn't really been a face of the party before, but is somewhat known in the business community as he was CEO of consulting firm 7N for many years, before now being the chairman of their board. He is also the leader of the church council in the one of the biggest and most famous churches, the Copenhagen Church of Our Lady cathedral. The only instances I can find of him running as a political candidate was back in 2005 and 2007, when the left-leaning Bodil Kornbek left the party, and he ran in local and parliamentary elections, and receiving very few votes.

He says his vision is to position the party as Denmark's greenest party, that the development aid level should be increased, and that there should be a better elderly care. He says he support the current Danish laws on abortion, and says it's a question he hasn't thought about for 20 years and doesn't want to take up any space around the party. He directly challenged the party's conservative wing, and said they must now decide once and for all whether the party should keep banging on about abortion and stay as a protest party, or whether they will let the new leadership have another focus. Hedaa says the outcome of the battle will be seen in six months, when a new party programme is to be approved at the party conference.
This attempt sounds a bit like what Rohde and Arendt tried and failed at in their time in charge of the party. The vision as a fairly progressive and green, centrist party seems even more difficult to pull off now with the Moderates largely occuping this space.

When his predecessor Marianne Karlsmose resigned as leader after the 2022 election, she said the party should stop running in national elections, and focus on maintaing a strong local and regional appeal. The party's result in 2022 was only 0.5%, the worst ever, and it's now 22 years since they crossed the threshold last. However, a clear majority in the party wants to give parliament another try, so we can expect they will soon start the signature gathering process. They have always been able to do it with plenty of time to spare before the election, so I presume they will manage to do it again.

[Diouf]

After the chaos in New Right, a new Megafon poll for TV2 and Politiken shows them below the threshold for the first time since they entered parliament in 2019. The poll has them down at 1.9 %.
Megafon also shows a very poor result for the government parties, who are down from 50.9 % at the election to 38.5 %. Social Democrats at 21.3%, Liberals at 9.4% and Moderates at 6.7%.

Still, the three dominant opposition parties are SPP at 14.3%, Liberal Alliance at 12.1% and Denmark Democrats at 10.0%

[Diouf]

The government has decided to remove the punishments for the civil servants in the Mink Scandal. The previous government set down a three-person working group to advise it, led by Thomas Rørdam, the same justice who led the witch trial against Inger Støjberg. The group completely rejects the findings in the Mink Commission, and believes nothing illegal happened. So therefore there shouldn't be punishments for the civil servants, including the powerful permament secretary in the Prime Ministry, Barbara Bertelsen. A further step towards banana republic territory, and certain to intensify the dislike against Frederiksen and the perceived power arrogance. Also re-hightlights this issue for the Liberal + Moderate voters and members, who are sceptical of the decision to join a government with Frederiksen at the helm.

Symbolically, this decision is published the day before the opening of a special exhibition 'The Wax Museum of Power' in Copenhagen. The magazine Frihedsbrevet has commisioned the creation of 10 real size wax figures of the civil servants responsible for the illegalities in the Mink Scandal, which will be shown alongside descriptions of their deeds in the scandal.

https://twitter.com/MBrgger/status/1635672648725196804

[JimJamUK]

The government has decided to remove the punishments for the civil servants in the Mink Scandal. The previous government set down a three-person working group to advise it, led by Thomas Rørdam, the same justice who led the witch trial against Inger Støjberg. The group completely rejects the findings in the Mink Commission, and believes nothing illegal happened. So therefore there shouldn't be punishments for the civil servants, including the powerful permanent secretary in the Prime Ministry, Barbara Bertelsen. A further step towards banana republic territory, and certain to intensify the dislike against Frederiksen and the perceived power arrogance. Also re-highlights this issue for the Liberal + Moderate voters and members, who are sceptical of the decision to join a government with Frederiksen at the helm.

I take it you’re not thrilled?

But yeah, this has horrible optics by itself and the new majority government has shown little interest in shaking off the ‘powerful’ label so will reap the consequences.

[Diouf]

The temporary Liberal leadership, Troels Lund Poulsen and Stephanie Lose, has given an interview to Avisen Danmark, where they set out the four goals, they believe the Liberals participation in government should be judged on. The four goals are the introduction of several reforms to secure a strong economy, a significant strengthening of the Danish defence, a responsible green transformation and a welfare society with a 'bigger focus on the individual than the system'. Lose in particular emphasize the need for a green transformation. Interesting whether this means they are willing to big concessions in terms of how strong climate demands, the agricultural sector will face. Of course also worth noting than immigration policy is not one of the four key goals.


https://twitter.com/CasperDall/status/1638974056585129986

[Diouf]

In Epinion's PM approval poll for Altinget and DR, Mette Frederiksen is now under water for the first time. 32% thinks she's doing a good or very good job, while 39% think she's doing a bad or very bad job.

The poll sees the Social Democrats continue dropping, and the government + Social Liberals is therefore significantly down overall. This is at the better end of the polling spectre for the Moderates, to be sure, but they are generally doing good compared to their two government partners. Løkke is doing great as foreign minister, while still playing an active role in domestic politics. The challenges for them are the on-going stories about Jon Stephensen. Also while they are a fairly broadly based party, they are more reliant on highly-educated voters around the capital than their government partners, so some of their core voters might be quite angry if the negotiations about the university reform ends as expected. It sounds like the government (particularly due to Social Democrat wishes) could make a deal with the three centre-right parties to cut down the number of university places in the liberal arts and social science as well as perhaps cutting some of the master studies from 2 to 1.25 years.

Most of the oppositions parties are gaining votes and seats. Still SPP and Liberal Alliance are the two biggest parties. Liberal Alliance is by far the biggest party among 18-34 year-olds with 20.8%. The Conservatives are stuck around their election result, and it still seems up in the air whether Pape can continue after his disastrous election campaign. And if he cannot continue, is there an agreement about the three contenders, Jarlov, Abildgaard and Mercado, about who will succeed him, or could we get a hard fought leadership campaign?
New Right is down, but not out, despite all their chaos. Actually the Alternative is closer to the threshold. Some of that is perhaps just tactical voters from the election drifting back towards SPP and Red-Green Alliance, but the party is also just very quiet.

Government + support party
Social Democrats 20.8% (-6.7%) 38 seats (-12)
Liberals 9.1% (-4.2%) 16 (-7)
Moderates 9.0% (-0.3%) 16 (=)
Social Liberals 3.3% (-0.5%) 6 (-1)
Combined 42.2% (-11.7%) 76 (-20)

Blue Bloc opposition
Liberal Alliance 11.0% (+3.1%) 20 (+6)
Denmark Democrats 8.9% (+0.8%) 16 (+2)
Conservatives 5.5% (=) 10 (=)
DPP 4.7% (+2.1%) 8 (+3)
New Right 2.7% (-1.0%) 4 (-2)
Combined 32.8% (+5.0%) 58 (+9)

Red Bloc opposition
SPP 13.1% (+4.8%) 24 (+9)
Red-Green Alliance 7.6% (+2.4%) 13 (+4)
Alternative 2.2% (-1.1%) 4 (-2)
Combined 22.9% (+6.1%) 41 (+11)


The Social Democrats seems like they will pick experienced MEP Christel Schaldemose as their front-runner in 2024. She has been a MEP since 2006. However, most of the discussion is about another potential candidate. Former Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod wants to run. He was a MEP from 2014-2019, and was re-elected in 2019. But shortly after, he was brought in as Foreign Minister. Then did not get elected as a MP in 2022. The party youth doesn't want him as a candidate due to his 2008 scandal, where he (aged 34) slept with a 15-year old at a Social Democrat Youth event. They say he is a 'candidate of the past', and that picking him as a candidate would go in the opposite direction of the cultural change, the party has worked so hard on in recent years.

[Diouf]

New Right MP Peter Seier Christensen is no longer able to work due to stress. However, the first in line as substitute MP would be Henriette Ergemann, the covid conspiracist, who recently left the party after being its deputy leader for a couple of days. The party does not want her in parliament, so Seier Christensen is not officially asking for sick leave. So the party is now for some time down to being de facto a 2 MP party with Pernille Vermund and Kim Edberg Andersen.

Denmark Democrats has published their budget proposal, which shows the four pillars the party wants to build its policies on:
- Development in rural areas (Move out 10.000 state jobs from cities to towns and rural areas, move education centres for nurses, teachers, social workers and pedagogues to rural areas, increase the broadband development fund by 50%, improve public transportation in rural areas, re-introduce the subsidy for workmen and increase the amount spent on town re-development)
- Better conditions for 'Production Denmark' (Increase the commute deduction, allow students to earn as much as they want while studying without getting their student allowance reduced/removed, introduce vocational lines at high schools, increase funding for vocational schools, increase funding for agricultural climate research instead of introducing new emission taxes.
- Improve health and elderly care (attract more doctors to rural areas by raising their pay checks, annulling their study debt etc., increase funding for psychiatry, increased spending on projects to reduce loneliness for elderly, increased funding for the elderly care as well as making it easier for the elderly to choose between public and private providers of care)
 - A tough immigration and justice policy (lower the benefits for immigrants, create a deportation center for criminal immigrants in a remote area/island to reduce harm for the local population, increase funding for police and prisons, higher sentences for gang crimes)

The funding for the proposals come from reducing development aid, reduce the Ministry of Culture's budget, reduce public administration costs, reform job centres, introduce fees for Danish langugage courses, roll back the extra funds for poor families with many children, and removing immigration projects.

[Diouf]

The government has decided to relax the border controls. The border controls with Sweden will be removed on 12 May, and the border control to Germany will be kept, but in a watered down form. A nice win for the Moderates. And a signal that the Liberals and Social Democrats might be a bit more able to relax policies, when they do them together. Two recent additions to the Liberals further signal that they have moved a bit left on immigration. Ex-MP and ex-MEP Jens Rohde, who turned from Liberal to Social Liberal to Christian Democrat, has now returned to the Liberals. Similarly, Marie Brixtofte, the leader of the Social Liberal group in Gentofte council and member of the Social Liberal executive committee and the daughter of famous former Liberal mayor Peter Brixtofte, has returned to the Liberals. They cite Støjberg leaving the party and the somewhat more relaxed policies on immigration as a readon for the shift.

[Diouf]

Sofie Carsten Nielsen, who led the Social Liberals at the 2022 election, is resigning as MP to become EU Bio Project Director at the Confederation of Danish Industry. She resigned the day after the 2022 election when it became obvious that not only had the party received a shellacking, there was significant doubt about whether she herself would keep her seat. In the end, she held on to her seat but with only 2 467 personal votes, a mere 256 more than her much less known colleague Stinus Lindgreen, who ran in the same constituency. Lindgreen will now take over the seat.

The union members in the private sector voted yes to the new collective agreement by a wide margen. 79% voted yes in a vote with a turnout of a decent 59% among the 400.000 union members. There had for months been concern about the difficulty in getting a deal amid the high inflation, and a potential for week-long strikes, especially when coupled with the government removing the Great Prayer Day as a holiday. However, it seemed like the employers gave the unions a better deal than perhaps expected and the deal was easily accepted in the end.

The parties are moving towards picking their MEP lists. 78-year old SPP veteran Margrethe Auken, who has been a MEP since 2004, has decided to not run again. It's widely expected that the party's other MEP, 25-year old Kira Marie Peter-Hansen, will become their lead candidate in 2024. In the Liberal Alliance, MP Henrik Dahl, has been nominated as lead candidate by the party leadership. The sociologist and author has been a MP since 2015, and been a significant voice in the anti-woke movement and in the battle for higher standards in education. In the Liberals, MEP Morten Løkkegaard, who topped the personal vote chart with 207 558 personal votes in 2019, is expected to be named lead candidate again. Former MEP and ex-Minister Ulla Tørnæs will also be a candidate.

The government is coming under increasing pressure for its plans to reform the early retirement schemes. Currently, there are two different, significant early retirement schemes. The so-called 'Arne Pension', named after a figure from the Social Democratic ads in 2019, and which has become the symbol of the party's workerite turn under Frederiksen. That pension gives you a right to early retirement 1-3 years before the normal retirement age if you have worked 42-44 years on the labour market. It gives you 14 000 DKK a month before taxation. After Frederiksen launched her proposal, the Blue majority at the time launched the so-called 'Senior Pension' which allows you to retire up to 6 years before the normal retirement age, if a doctor believes that you aren't able to work more than 15 hours a week. It gives you 19 300 DKK a month before taxation.

While the 'Arne Pension' clearly won the PR battle, the senior pension has so far had a lot more beneficiaries. At the end of 2022, 9 542 person were on the Arne Pension and 21 658 persons on the seniorpension. And perhaps those numbers were part of the reason why the new government wants to reduce the attraction of the senior pension. It wants to combine the two pensions at a common level at around 15 000 DKK, and then keep the two different ways you can deserve to get it.
However, the government is receiving more and more criticism for this, as it would be a significant worsening for those on senior pensions.

Now, the three leaders of the Liberal Alliance, Conservatives and Social Liberals have joined forces to propose an alternative to the government. They argue that the Arne Pension should be abolished, and the same should happen to the last remnants of the old efterløn early retirement scheme. But that the senior pension should be kept as it is.
Symbolically, it would of course be almost impossible for the Social Democrats to accept a removal of the Arne Pension, even if it's not as popular in practice as expected. But many in the Moderates and Liberals might prefer this proposal, as it keeps their early retirement scheme, and makes early retirement based on your degree of "worn downness", not a general right after working x number of years. In the last week, the government is no longer repeating the lines about this proposal from the government programme, so there are some signs that it might want to move its position somewhat.

https://twitter.com/lehmannkomm/status/1648379849176760328

[Diouf]

Agreement on Budget 2023

The government has agreed a budget for 2023 with SPP, Liberal Alliance, Social Liberals and DPP. Normally the budget for the year is agreed at the end of the previous year, but due to the election and government formation, there was only a formal "continuation budget" approved at the end of 2022. This was the real political budget, although less significant than usual, as we are already so long into 2023, and several key negotiations about big reforms are ongoing outside the budget.

The budget introduces an additional 26 weeks of parental leave for parents of twins or above, several new measures to fight PFAS-pollution, an increased tax deduction for those in-work under 18s, an increase in the stock ownership deduction, 80 mio. kr. to improve the psychiatry and initiatives to improve youth well-being as well as funds to strengthen the police burglary unit and the animal ambulance unit.
 
https://twitter.com/politikdr/status/1650528045118406656

Pressure is mounting on the Moderates in regard to their MP Jon Stephensen. In the past months, he has been criticized for his leadership style as theater director and a case of forgery. Now it has been revealed that the 63-year old MP wrote a 19-year old party member that "you are beautiful, and have the hottest body" late at night. The Moderate Youth is demanding his removal from the party, and no one in the party seems willing to defend him any longer. Lars Løkke said that he regards this case as extremely serious, and that he will meet Stephensen tomorrow to discuss the case. If Stephensen is forced to leave the party, it's of course very interesting whether he will stay in parliament as an independent, or resign and let a new Moderate MP enter parliament. The government currently has 92 seats, so it's not like its life is under threat if he becomes an independent, especially since the 7 Social Liberals MPs are supporting the government as well. But it would damage the government and the Moderates, where people was from the start doubting the quality of their MPs.

Norwegian media have written that Mette Frederiksen is in contention as Secretary General of NATO. There have been no speculation of Frederiksen leaving for an international post domestically at all, so it seemed to emerge out of thin air. And she is of course rejecting all those speculations so far. Interesting if there is actually anything in it. Because, she doesn't seem that high on the American list of important heads of government. Frederiksen has yet to visit the White House, and will be by far the latest of modern Danish PMs to go there, if she gets the chance at some point.

[Diouf]

Jon Stephensen goes on self-paid leave until the beginning of the new parliamentary season in October. So the Moderates will get his replacement MP, Lean Milo, into their group until then. This was perhaps the smallest sanction, that Løkke could get away with giving Stephensen without angering too many in the party, especially in the Youth party. And then he could hope that Stephensen himself decides to step down before he returns from his leave.

[Diouf]

New Voxmeter poll.
The worst Moderate poll for a while after the Stephensen case, New Right now all the way down at 1% a year after polling at 9%, SPP get their best poll in 12 years and a tight three-way battle for being the biggest Blue party.

Government + support party
Social Democrats 21.7% (-5.8%)
Liberals 10.3% (-3.0%)
Moderates 6.2% (-3.1%)
Social Liberals 4.6% (+0.8%)
Combined: 42.8% (-11.1%)

Blue parties
Denmark Democrats 10.4% (+2.3%)
Liberal Alliance 10.2% (+2.3%)
Conservatives 5.8% (+0.3%)
DPP 3.6% (+1.0%)
New Right 1.0% (-2.7%)
Combined: 31.0% (+3.2%)

Red parties
SPP 15.8% (+7.5%)
Red-Green Alliance 7.1% (+2.0%)
Alternative 2.3% (-1.0%)
Combined: 25.2% (+8.5%)

[DavidB.]

The parties are moving towards picking their MEP lists. 78-year old SPP veteran Margrethe Auken, who has been a MEP since 2004, has decided to not run again. It's widely expected that the party's other MEP, 25-year old Kira Marie Peter-Hansen, will become their lead candidate in 2024. In the Liberal Alliance, MP Henrik Dahl, has been nominated as lead candidate by the party leadership. The sociologist and author has been a MP since 2015, and been a significant voice in the anti-woke movement and in the battle for higher standards in education. In the Liberals, MEP Morten Løkkegaard, who topped the personal vote chart with 207 558 personal votes in 2019, is expected to be named lead candidate again. Former MEP and ex-Minister Ulla Tørnæs will also be a candidate.

Where do you expect the Denmark Democrats and the Liberal Alliance to go in the EP? (I guess the question is moot for NB since they've fallen so low...) And do you think DF will get in again?

[Diouf]

Where do you expect the Denmark Democrats and the Liberal Alliance to go in the EP? (I guess the question is moot for NB since they've fallen so low...) And do you think DF will get in again?

Denmark Democrats will likely go for ECR. Seems like the obvious choice as a respectable, and somewhat Eurosceptic group.

There is an interview with the LA lead candidate Henrik Dahl about the issue here: https://www.bt.dk/politik/la-spidskandidat-naegter-at-svare-paa-hvor-han-vil-hen-i-eu

He says that it's a difficult choice, because Renew is a group of federalists and we are not, while many of the parties in the EPP are 'much blacker' (presumably refering to the environment), than LA. So it seems like these are the two main options for them. He says the executive committee will discuss the issue. Henrik Dahl himself belongs to the more nationalconservative part of LA, and would absolutely hate being in a group with the woke part of Renew. He himself might more or less fit quite good in ECR, but the party has swung too much in an EU-positive direction to make that work now. So I'm guessing Dahl himself is aiming for EPP, but the party might lean towards Renew.

If DPP and New Right form an alliance, which would be the only logical move considering the threshold but perhaps the mutual dislike keeps them from it, it would boost the DPP's chances. I would be surprised if there wouldn't be enough support for one right-wing anti-EU MEP. A lot will depend on the lead candidates from Denmark Democrats, DPP and New Right, to where the Eurosceptic right-wing votes will go.

[Diouf]

Jakob Ellemann has announced that he is returning to politics on 1 August. After his absence since early February, the questions were starting to mount about whether the Liberal leader would ever return to frontline politics, and particularly with his replacements Lund Poulsen and Lose being more popular than him. So with this message, that debate should now be mostly closed until his return. Lose has announced that she will then return to her post as leader of the Southern Denmark region. But if Ellemann's ratings continue to languish and new leader is needed, Lose has probably established herself as the best alternative now.

[CumbrianLefty]

New Voxmeter poll.
The worst Moderate poll for a while after the Stephensen case, New Right now all the way down at 1% a year after polling at 9%, SPP get their best poll in 12 years and a tight three-way battle for being the biggest Blue party.

Government + support party
Social Democrats 21.7% (-5.8%)
Liberals 10.3% (-3.0%)
Moderates 6.2% (-3.1%)
Social Liberals 4.6% (+0.8%)
Combined: 42.8% (-11.1%)

Blue parties
Denmark Democrats 10.4% (+2.3%)
Liberal Alliance 10.2% (+2.3%)
Conservatives 5.8% (+0.3%)
DPP 3.6% (+1.0%)
New Right 1.0% (-2.7%)
Combined: 31.0% (+3.2%)

Red parties
SPP 15.8% (+7.5%)
Red-Green Alliance 7.1% (+2.0%)
Alternative 2.3% (-1.0%)
Combined: 25.2% (+8.5%)

SPP only six points behind the SDs - eek.

[YL]

New Voxmeter poll.
The worst Moderate poll for a while after the Stephensen case, New Right now all the way down at 1% a year after polling at 9%, SPP get their best poll in 12 years and a tight three-way battle for being the biggest Blue party.

Government + support party
Social Democrats 21.7% (-5.8%)
Liberals 10.3% (-3.0%)
Moderates 6.2% (-3.1%)
Social Liberals 4.6% (+0.8%)
Combined: 42.8% (-11.1%)

Blue parties
Denmark Democrats 10.4% (+2.3%)
Liberal Alliance 10.2% (+2.3%)
Conservatives 5.8% (+0.3%)
DPP 3.6% (+1.0%)
New Right 1.0% (-2.7%)
Combined: 31.0% (+3.2%)

Red parties
SPP 15.8% (+7.5%)
Red-Green Alliance 7.1% (+2.0%)
Alternative 2.3% (-1.0%)
Combined: 25.2% (+8.5%)

SPP only six points behind the SDs - eek.

Seems not particularly surprising given the composition of the current cabinet.