{"id":47826,"date":"2026-03-25T03:30:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T03:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/47826\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T03:30:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T03:30:27","slug":"denmarks-frederiksen-bruised-in-election-coalition-talks-loom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/47826\/","title":{"rendered":"Denmark’s Frederiksen bruised in election, coalition talks loom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copenhagen, Denmark\/Nuuk, Greenland
Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen\u2019s Social Democrats appeared headed for their worst election outcome in over a century on Tuesday, as migration and welfare concerns obscured broad support for her defiant stance toward Washington over Greenland.<\/p>\n

In power since 2019, Frederiksen, 48, had campaigned on a promise that her tough and tested leadership skills would help the Nordic nation navigate a complex relationship with US President Donald Trump and the European response to Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Mette Frederiksen, Denmark\u2019s Prime Minister and leader of the Social Democrats party, attends an election party following the exit polls of the parliamentary elections, at the Parliament in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 25th March, 2026. PICTURE: Reuters\/Leonhard Foeger<\/p>\n

But on Tuesday she emerged bruised both from the left and the right at home, where the cost-of-living crisis has come to the front of voter concerns, observers said.<\/p>\n

Social Democrats seen winning 38 seats
Frederiksen\u2019s Social Democrats, the architects of Denmark\u2019s cradle-to-grave welfare state, were seen winning 38 seats in the legislature, the Folketing, compared with 50 four years earlier.<\/p>\n

Her chances of staying in for a third term were not gone, observers said, although coalition talks could take weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ready to take on the responsibility,\u201d she told supporters in the parliament building in central Copenhagen late into the night. \u201cIt will be difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frederiksen sought to downplay the decline in her party\u2019s popularity, which comes amid a wave of anti-incumbent sentiment globally and several external shocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had to deal with war, we\u2019ve been threatened by the American president and in those almost seven years we\u2019ve gone down 4 percentage points, I think that\u2019s OK,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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Frederiksen\u2019s left-wing bloc was seen winning 84 seats in parliament, versus 77 for the right-leaning parties, projections by local media based on 100 per cent of votes counted showed.<\/p>\n

Many of her left-wing supporters appeared frustrated with an immigration policy they saw as too tough, while some on the right saw her too soft and untrustworthy on economic issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is between a rock and a hard place because the numbers are bad for her,\u201d said Andreas Thyrring, a partner at Ulveman & Borsting public affairs advisory firm.<\/p>\n

In Brussels,\u00a0Frederiksen is widely respected for her clear line on Greenland and for her efforts to ramp up Denmark\u2019s defence spending in the wake of the Ukraine conflict. But her negotiating style is seen by some as abrasive and many Danes sought change.<\/p>\n

The vote was also being closely watched in Greenland, with many hoping it will be a chance for the territory to leverage Trump\u2019s unprecedented desire to wield control over the Arctic island to wrangle concessions from its former colonial power in Copenhagen.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Ballots are sorted at the conclusion of the parliamentary election at Aalborg Congress and Culture Center, in Aalborg, Denmark, on 24th March, 2026. PICTURE: Ritzau Scanpix\/via Reuters<\/p>\n

Migration policy in focus
Underscoring the broad backlash against Frederiksen, support for the anti-immigration Danish People\u2019s Party, led by Morten Messerschmidt, surged to 9.1 per cent with more than 90 per cent of votes counted by public broadcaster DR, up nearly seven percentage points compared to the last election.<\/p>\n

Messerschmidt had campaigned on a pledge to ensure zero net migration of Muslims and to abolish petrol taxes as a measure to ease living costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that the Danish People\u2019s Party has now tripled its support clearly shows that Danes are fed up with this and that there are a great many people who want a different direction for Denmark,\u201d Messerschmidt said after exit polls were published.<\/p>\n

The non-aligned Moderates party of Lars Lokke Rasmussen could hold the key to the next ruling coalition, some observers said, with the outgoing foreign minister calling on Frederiksen to drop her calls for a wealth tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no hard-red majority to our left, and no hard-blue majority to our right,\u201d Rasmussen said at his party\u2019s election-night party in Copenhagen.<\/p>\n

Frederiksen proposed the tax \u2013 at a modest rate of 0.5 per cent aimed at funding education reform \u2013 to rebuild her leftist credentials that had been damaged by a coalition with the centre-right.<\/p>\n

She has also overseen one of the toughest approaches to migration in Europe, with refugee status temporary, conditional support and expectations of integration in society.<\/p>\n

She also co-led a push by nine EU countries for easier expulsion of foreign criminals, and earlier this year proposed legislation to increase deportations.<\/p>\n

The leader of the Liberal Party, Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, said he was no longer interested in coalition rule with Frederiksen, underscoring complex talks ahead for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe possibility is there, Lars!\u201d Poulsen said in Copenhagen in an apparent nudge to Rasmussen.<\/p>\n

\u2013 With reporting by LOUISE RASMUSSEN, ILZE FILKS, TOM LITTLE and LEONHARD FOEGER in Copenhagen; TIM BARSOE in Nuuk, Greenland; and OLIVER BARTH in Graested, Denmark<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Copenhagen, Denmark\/Nuuk, GreenlandReuters Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen\u2019s Social Democrats appeared headed for their worst election outcome in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[26869,27,26,16549,57,3933,3396,26870,26805,26658,16112,652,5030],"class_list":["post-47826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denmark","tag-danish-peoples-party","tag-danmark","tag-denmark","tag-denmark-election","tag-greenland","tag-lars-lokke-rasmussen","tag-mette-frederiksen","tag-migration-policies","tag-moderates","tag-morten-messerschmidt","tag-social-democrats","tag-us","tag-welfare"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116287702508002731","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}