Denmark<\/a> and the future of Europe, pledging to rearm and \u201cstand on our own feet\u201d.<\/p>\n\u201cDear Danes, today I have asked his majesty the king to call an election for the Folketing,\u201d she said. \u201cWhether I will continue to be your prime minister depends on how strong a mandate you give the Social Democrats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frederiksen\u2019s profile on the international stage has risen considerably over the past two months in which she has rallied European leaders in the face of what could have been an existential threat to the Nato alliance over Greenland.<\/p>\n
Other centre-left and liberal politicians have gained a boost in opposing Trump, including the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, who has faced down the US president\u2019s threats to annex its northern neighbour.<\/p>\n
Frederiksen said Denmark would have to redefine its relationship with the US, which had been seen as its closest ally.<\/p>\n
Denmark and Greenland, a former colony that is now largely autonomous but has its foreign and security policy run from Copenhagen, are talking to the US about Arctic security.<\/p>\n
Frederiksen said: \u201cThis will be a decisive election, because it will be in the next four years that we as Danes and as Europeans will really have to stand on our own feet. We need to define our relationship with the United States, and we must rearm to ensure peace on our continent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must stick together in Europe, and we must secure the future of the Danish commonwealth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commonwealth includes the Faroe Islands.<\/p>\n
Frederiksen\u2019s stance on Greenland appears to have worked in her favour domestically. A poll by Megafon for TV2 last month found that support for the Social Democrats had risen to 22.7% of the vote and a projected 41 seats, up from 32 seats in early December.<\/p>\n
In November, before Trump\u2019s renewed threats on Greenland, Frederiksen\u2019s party suffered widespread defeats across the country.<\/p>\n
The latest polling would put the red bloc \u2013 including Frederiksen\u2019s Social Democrats and smaller leftwing parties \u2013 on 87 seats, more than the 71 of the current government.<\/p>\n
Peter Thisted Dinesen, a politics professor at the University of Copenhagen, said US pressure had had a \u201crallying\u201d effect on Frederiksen.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Greenland crisis has arguably aided her by conveying her ability to steer the country through an international crisis,\u201d he added. \u201cThe Social Democrats are faring better in the polls than after the local elections and have been presenting a significant number of new initiatives targeting different voter groups.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dinesen said the initiatives included F\u00f8devarechecken, a food support scheme. \u201cThe polls indicate it might have had some effect,\u201d he said, noting that the rightwing nationalist Danish People\u2019s party had dropped in the polls.<\/p>\n
Announcing plans for a wealth tax to generate 6bn kroner (\u00a3700m) for primary schools, Frederiksen told parliament: \u201cA wealth tax should take the edge off inequality and create a better balance in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also proposed to abolish property tax for homes worth less than 1m kroner.<\/p>\n
In her speech, Frederiksen thanked the foreign minister, Lars L\u00f8kke Rasmussen, who is leader of the Moderates, and the defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, leader of the Liberals, for their work in her coalition, joking: \u201cWhen an elephant and a camel can become friends, so can political opponents.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she said she would be keeping her options open for potential coalition partners after the election: \u201cCould it be a choice over the political middle again? Yes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denmark\u2019s prime minister has called an early election to take advantage of a \u201cGreenland bounce\u201d after Donald Trump\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-507044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}