{"id":244441,"date":"2025-07-07T05:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T05:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/244441\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T05:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T05:09:10","slug":"russian-threat-shifts-denmarks-thinking-on-defence-spending-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/244441\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian threat shifts Denmark\u2019s thinking on defence spending \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

When patrolling the coast of Greenland<\/a> up near the Arctic Circle on one of Denmark<\/a>\u2019s naval ships, the commanding officer, Jens Bach, says the only Russians<\/a> he comes across are in fishing boats. <\/p>\n

The bigger concern for Denmark is what might be going on closer to home in the waters of the Baltic Sea. <\/p>\n

There have been reported instances of Russian interference, such as the jamming of navigation systems. \u201cI think it\u2019s something that mostly happens in the Baltic area, not that much up in the high north,\u201d says Bach, who was speaking while on the docked naval ship in Aarhus harbour.<\/p>\n

Nordic neighbours have recorded a rise in incidents of undersea cables being sabotaged, with Moscow viewed as the most likely culprit. <\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago was a \u201cwake up call\u201d for Denmark and Europe, says minister for defence Troels Lund Poulsen. <\/p>\n

Back then Denmark spent about 1.5 per cent of its economic output, or gross domestic product (GDP), on defence. This year it plans to have raised defence spending to 3.2 per cent, a significant increase in a short space of time. \u201cWe need to be able to defend ourselves by 2030 at the latest,\u201d Lund Poulsen says. <\/p>\n

Anxiety about the future threat Russia poses to Europe if Vladimir Putin is allowed to succeed in Ukraine has changed public attitudes. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Denmark greenlights US military bases on Danish soilOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Denmark had always been sceptical about leaning further into the European Union and for three decades had a formal \u201copt-out\u201d of the union\u2019s common defence policy. <\/p>\n

The clause was introduced to allay fears that closer integration would eventually lead to Danes being sent off to fight under the flag of a joint EU army. <\/p>\n

Two thirds of voters backed a proposal to ditch the opt-out in a June 2022 referendum, meaning Copenhagen has a free hand to co-operate on plans to boost Europe\u2019s defence industry. <\/p>\n

There was a recognition that Denmark could not go it alone and instead needed to be \u201call-in on the European dimension\u201d, according to Derek Beach, a professor of political science at Aarhus University. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really been remarkable how quickly that shifted after the invasion,\u201d Beach says. \u201cIt is quite clear something happened related to Danish attitudes to increased defence spending, due to fear of Russia,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

In proportion to its population of about six million people, Denmark is one of the biggest contributors of military and financial aid to Ukraine, sending more than \u20ac9 billion to Kyiv to help it keep fighting. <\/p>\n

It has been doing more on the home front as well. A draft calling up several thousand young men to spend up to 11 months in the military has been extended to young women as well. It is planning to deploy floating drones in the Baltic Sea to keep a closer eye on undersea cables, given they are vulnerable to hybrid attacks and sabotage. <\/p>\n

The sight of Russian tanks streaming across Ukraine\u2019s border also prompted two of its Nordic neighbours, Finland and Sweden, to join Nato. <\/p>\n

Denmark was one of the original members of the western military alliance and recently pushed for a tight time frame to be set on commitments to massively increase defence spending. Nato members ultimately signed up to spend five per cent of their economic output on defence and related infrastructure projects, by 2035. <\/p>\n

It was not just a growing fear of Russia that ended Danes\u2019 reluctance about deepening EU ties. The population paid close attention to the rough time Britain had after leaving the union. \u201cWatching Brexit turn into a sh*t show really impacted Danish attitudes,\u201d Beach says. <\/p>\n

US president Donald Trump\u2019s threat to take over Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark in the Arctic, pushed Copenhagen even closer to its European allies. <\/p>\n

One of the few centre-left heads of government in Europe, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen has enjoyed a boost in popularity on the back of her strong support for Ukraine. \u201cShe\u2019s very much an Iron Lady and takes a crisis very seriously,\u201d Beach says. <\/p>\n

Politically the government does not fit into any one neat box. It is led by the Social Democrats yet takes a very hard line on migration. It is instinctively fiscally conservative, yet ambitious on climate and the green transition and hawkish on defence spending. <\/p>\n

Frederiksen, who has led the Social Democrats for a decade, took them into power in 2019. They improved their position in the last election in 2022, but rather than govern with a razor-thin majority, Frederiksen opted for a coalition with two smaller parties, the centre-right Liberals and the Moderates, a centrist party led by former prime minister Lars L\u00f8kke Rasmussen. <\/p>\n

The Social Democrats\u2019 political success is in part due to a major pivot around 2015, when it started taking a tougher approach to those seeking asylum in Denmark. <\/p>\n

Frederiksen\u2019s rightward lurch cut off oxygen to far right nationalist forces, who are threatening to unseat many mainstream governments elsewhere in Europe. <\/p>\n

The government is in the middle of a second pivot which may prove to be as defining. <\/p>\n

Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden have been known as the \u201cfrugal four\u201d, who are keen to rein in EU spending and limit the bloc\u2019s budget. The fiscally conservative group has resisted calls for the 27 member states to raise money by borrowing funds together. <\/p>\n

Cash-strapped southern and eastern states favour common borrowing because the EU would be able to command better loan repayment terms than they would individually. Those with healthier budgets, like the frugals, Germany and Ireland, are nervous about the proposal leading to unchecked EU spending. <\/p>\n

In a notable shift, Frederiksen has said Denmark will no longer be among the \u201cfrugal\u201d camp, in the coming negotiations about the size and shape of the next EU budget. This change of heart may stretch to support for some type of common borrowing, on the condition the money raised was put towards defence. <\/p>\n

Europe had made a \u201cgrave mistake\u201d by taking its security for granted, Frederiksen said in a speech in Aarhus in recent days. \u201cFor too long we spent too little and we must never repeat that again. We need to rearm,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Berlin has changed its thinking too. Conservative chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s new German government has thrown open the door to a major expansion in the amount it spends on its military, after decades of fiscal restraint. <\/p>\n

Minister for European affairs Marie Bjerre says Denmark understood the \u201cstatus quo\u201d would not cut in when it came to the next EU budget, which is always the product of a contentious fight between Brussels and national governments. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not the Danish government policy that the budget should be bigger or that we should have common debt,\u201d she says. \u201cHowever, I think we have said quite clearly we do not consider ourselves part of the Frugal Four, meaning that we are not rejecting anything beforehand. We will go into these discussions with an open mind, because we are in crucial times for Europe.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When patrolling the coast of Greenland up near the Arctic Circle on one of Denmark\u2019s naval ships, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[365,2000,299,5187,1699,366,69751],"class_list":{"0":"post-244441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-denmark","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-greenland","14":"tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organisation-nato"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114810229556827941","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}