Denmark History – Modernization and Reformism

Denmark History – Modernization and Reformism

The experience of the war led D to abandon traditional neutralism and in 1949 joined the Atlantic Pact. In the following years, he conducted a prudent policy towards the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, refused to accept nuclear weapons on the national territory and tried to limit military spending. Joining the Nordic Council in 1952 reconfirmed traditional links with the countries of the region. In 1973 the Denmark entered the EEC after a heated debate in the country. On the institutional level, the repeal of the Salic law allowed Margaret II to ascend the throne (1972). The welfare state system was confirmed and extended.

According to agooddir, the Social Democrats remained by far the main force, but the rise of a pole to their left (the People’s Socialist Party established itself in 1960) and the weakening of the radicals made it impossible to reconstitute the pre-war bipartite majority, giving rise to considerable instability. politics. The fragmentation of parliamentary representation, from 1973, accentuated the difficulties of the political system, which saw the succession of unstable minority governments.

In 1982, the Conservatives returned, for the first time since 1901, to the leadership of the country: the center-right coalition reduced the rate of inflation, but the persistence of a precarious political balance was confirmed by the numerous parliamentary defeats of the PH Schlüter government. In the 1990s the political life of Denmark was characterized by the debate on European integration and by a difficult economic situation; in 1993 the commitment of the center-left executive returned to the leadership of the country with PN Rasmussen (the center-left would remain in the government until 2001) in support of the European integration process weighed in the approval of the referendum to join the Maastricht treaty. In 2000, membership of the single currency was rejected and a transversal alignment was formed that saw united against the supporters of the euro (social democrats, liberals, economic and financial establishments, trade unions) the xenophobic extreme right of the Danish People’s Party (affirmed in the elections 1998), the People’s Socialist Party and environmentalists, united by the fear of a loss of national sovereignty to the advantage of Europe. After the 2001 general elections, dominated by the debate on the immigrant issue, the liberals, led by AF Rasmussen, gave life to a center-right government (with the conservatives and the external support of the Danish People’s Party) which introduced more restrictive rules in immigration theme. The early parliamentary elections of 2005 rewarded the coalition led by Rasmussen, while the growth of the People’s Party consolidated the presence of the more radical right in the national political landscape. Once the government coalition went into crisis, in the early elections of 2007 Rasmussen obtained a small majority, defeating the Social Democratic candidate H. Thorning Schmidt, who instead succeeded in the consultations held in Sept. 2011 achieving an absolute majority with 89 of the 179 seats in Parliament and marking the return to power of the center left after ten years of opposition. The right reconquered Parliament in the political elections in June 2015: voters gave 52.3% of the vote to the “Blue Bloc” of the right led by the former premier, and leader of the liberal Venstre party, L. Løkke Rasmussen, who got 51, 5% of the votes by beating the center-left coalition headed by outgoing premier Thorning-Schmidt, who resigned. With 20.5% of the votes, the liberals of Prime Minister Rasmussen placed themselves as the second political force in the country in the European elections held in May 2019, preceded by the Social Democrats (22.9%) and followed by the sovereign right of the People’s Party, down sharply (13.2%). The political elections held in the following June confirmed these results, with the Social Democratic Party clearly beating the outgoing government of Prime Minister Rasmussen, obtaining over 25% of the votes and winning an absolute majority (90 out of 179 seats), against 20% of the liberals; clear affirmation of the Greens that with 5% of the preferences have doubled the consensus compared to the consultations of 2015. The Social Democrat M. Frederiksen took over from Rasmussen in the same month, at the head of a minority government.

Denmark History - Modernization and Reformism

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