Mette Frederiksen, the Prime Minister of Denmark, informed King Frederik X on Monday that she has reached a government agreement to continue leading the Executive for another four years. After nearly 70 days of post-election negotiations — the longest in the history of the Scandinavian country — the social democratic leader has reached a pact to form a coalition government alongside the centrists of the Moderate Party, the Social Liberal Party (moderate left), and the Green Left. Frederiksen, whose political career seemed to be nearing its end a few months ago, is securing a third term and is on track to become the longest-serving prime minister of the Nordic country since World War II.
Frederiksen, 48 years old and in power since 2019, achieved a bittersweet victory in the parliamentary elections on March 24. Although the Social Democratic Party comfortably won the elections with 21.3% of the votes, the party recorded its worst result since 1903, placing Frederiksen in a delicate position for the negotiations. Still, none of her rivals had realistic chances of securing the parliamentary support needed to be appointed prime minister.
“I think everyone will be surprised by how much we want to do. It is a government program that is good both for the citizens of Denmark and for future generations and for animals,” Frederiksen told the media after speaking for just over 10 minutes with the king aboard his boat, docked in the port of Odense, where the monarch arrived on Monday to spend a few days on vacation. The foundations of the government agreement will be presented on Tuesday, while the ministers will be appointed on Wednesday, according to the social democratic leader.
The future coalition government will have the parliamentary support of two other left-wing forces that have pushed to include animal welfare measures in the agreement: the Red-Green Alliance and The Alternative.
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A fervent Europeanist, staunch defender of Ukraine, and supporter of a tough stance on immigration, Frederiksen is the third longest-serving head of government in the EU — only surpassed by Croatian Andrej Plenkovic and Spanish Pedro Sánchez. At the end of last December, the Danish prime minister was going through her lowest moments. The Green Left, surprising winner in the 2024 European elections, was closing in on her in the polls, and the social democratic candidate for mayor of Copenhagen, handpicked by the prime minister, had just suffered a setback in the municipal elections: overwhelmed by parties to their left, the social democrats lost power in the Danish capital for the first time in over a century.
The prime minister acknowledged mistakes in her New Year’s speech: “I have not done enough in the face of rising food prices. I have not done enough regarding growing inequalities. This has to change.” However, it was not self-criticism that reversed her delicate situation, but the resurgence of Donald Trump’s threats to take control of Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory integrated into the Kingdom of Denmark. Frederiksen mobilized her European allies: France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway sent small contingents to the vast Arctic island. The prime minister’s strong response to the harassment from the U.S. president was quickly reflected in the polls. Frederiksen wanted to capitalize on the momentum and, at the end of February, announced the calling of early elections.
The result for the prime minister in the elections held less than a month later was slightly worse than predicted by the polls. However, despite the social democrats dropping from 50 seats to 38, the fragmentation in Parliament, with up to 12 parties represented — three of them far-right — and the inability to reach a majority among right-wing forces, have allowed Frederiksen to gather support from the left and center to remain in power for another four years.