Michael de Laine

By Michael de Laine, The Copenhagen Voice, 5 April 2009

Finance Minister of Finance Lars Løkke Rasmussen has succeeded Anders Fogh Rasmussen as Prime Minister of Denmark. Yesterday, Fogh Rasmussen was appointed secretary-general of Nato.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen – formerly Denmark’s Minister of Finance – has taken over the post of Prime Minister held by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who handed in his resignation at an audience with Queen Margrethe II this afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon, Fogh Rasmussen was appointed secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Nato, from 1 August this year.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen consulted with Deputy Prime Minister Lene Espersen, who heads the Conservatives, Pia Kjærsgaard, leader of the Danish People’s Party, and Anders Samuelsen, head of the Liberal Alliance, to ascertain whether Lars Løkke Rasmussen would be supported by a majority in the Danish parliament, Folketinget.

The Conservatives form the present coalition government with Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s Liberals. Together they have the support of the Danish People’s Party.

Queen Margrethe II appointed Lars Løkke Rasmussen as her new Prime Minister during an audience at 2.30 pm.

Opposition parties have called for a new election to the Folketinget, but there is nothing in the constitution to require a general election when a Prime Minister resigns.

The next general election must be held on 23 November 2011 at the latest, four years after the last election.

“The Queen has asked me to form a government comprising the Liberals and the Conservatives, a request I have accepted,” Lars Løkke Rasmussen said at an impromptu news conference at the Amalienborg Palace after his audience with Queen Margrethe II.

Denmark’s new Prime Minister will “…work day and night and use all the experience I have from more than 20 years as an elected politician to navigate Denmark as safely as possible through through the international crisis that we are in, a crisis that we know neither the depth nor length of. But the way that task is managed is vital for enabling us to keep the unique Danish welfare society that means a lot to all of us and which makes Denmark a country with great powers of cohesion.”

He said his ambition is furthering the welfare state and building strong bridges between the desire of modern people to be independent, decide for themselves, take a responsibility and the feeling of living in a strong fellowship that looks after the weakest.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen will be at work in the Prime Minister’s Office at 8 am tomorrow (Monday) morning and will use the coming days to review the government’s ministerial profile. Following the resignation of Karen Jespersen as Minister of Social Welfare, Gender Equality and Housing on Friday, Løkke Rasmussen is expected to appoint his own team of ministers after the Easter vacation.

“At the moment I am both Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, and that is not a solution that is tenable in the long term,” Løkke Rasmussen said.

“My Prime Ministership does not mark any change in foreign policy,” he added. “I stand here today because Denmark has conducted a strong foreign policy and has assumed an international responsibility. That has been repaid in that Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been appointed to the highest international post that any elected Danish politician has ever been given.”