Danish government project needs ‘reconfirming’ if Frederiksen gets NATO top job

The ruling coalition’s political project must be ‘reconfirmed’ should Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen leave her post to become NATO’s next Secretary General, Moderate Party leader and Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said on Monday.

As Frederiksen met US President Joe Biden at the White House on Monday, rumours of her appointment as head of NATO have emerged, even though Frederiksen states she is not a candidate.

However, her coalition allies seem to entertain the possibility, as Moderate Party leader and Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen suggested.

“First of all, I would say that the fact that anyone is even talking about Denmark getting the NATO Secretary General post again is pretty fantastic. It should be taken as a gift, both to Mette Frederiksen as a person and to the country of Denmark.”, Løkke Rasmussen said.

But should Frederiksen leave the prime ministership to replace Norway’s former prime minister and long-standing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, there will be a need to “reaffirm” the government’s political project, as Løkke put it.

“I told myself during the election campaign that it’s about something, not someone. And that something is politics.”, he said.

“There are some people who have backed this policy, and if that group of people is suddenly shuffled around, there is a need to reconfirm the political project,” he added about himself and Frederiksen as both of them aimed to form a broad central government in the run-up to the last November election.

As a result of the coalition talks, Denmark is now ruled by a government including the Social Democrats as well as the Liberals and the Moderates (both sitting in Renew Europe in the European Parliament).

“If that situation arises, you have to make sure that everyone is still on board with the plan”, he concluded.

Asked in Washington about her prospects of joining NATO, Frederiksen refused to engage in speculation. “I’m not going to go into that speculation. I would like to repeat what I have said before that I am happy to be prime minister of Denmark,” she said.

(Charles Szumski | EURACTIV.com)