Denmark must make sacrifices to emerge from a sudden economic downturn that struck this year after a long period of prosperity, the country's new prime minister said Monday as she presented a new coalition government formed after two weeks of difficult negotiations. Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the country's first female prime minster, heads an alliance that includes ex-communists and pro-market liberals and has struggled to chart an economic program. Danish media have reported, citing unidentified officials familiar with the negotiations, that Thorning-Schmidt's plans for tax hikes on wealthy Danes and banks apparently were scrapped after vehement opposition from the pro-business Social Liberals. Danish media also reported that the coalition has agreed on boosting Denmark's economy with 10 billion kroner ($1.8 billion) in public investments. “The government platform will show the way out of the crisis,” Helle Thorning-Schmidt said as she presented a new three-party alliance, including both ex-communists and pro-market liberals. The new prime minister was flanked by the nine other women and 13 men drawn from her Social Democrats and the Social Liberal and Socialist People's parties who will make up her 23-member administration. Among them is the country's first-ever minister of immigrant origin: Indian-born Social Liberal Manu Sareen, 44, who has been given the Ecclesiastical and Equality Ministry. Thorning-Schmidt's cabinet includes five more ministries than that of her predecessor Lars Loekke Rasmussen's centre-right government, which heavily relied on the support of the populist, anti-immigration Danish People's Party (DPP). A notable change was the scraping of the integration ministry, in the clearest indication yet that the right-wing DPP's decade-long grip on immigration policy has come to an end. The foreign ministry was given to Thorning-Schmidt's main partner through the campaign, Socialist People's Party leader Villy Soevndal, and the economy and interior ministry went to the head of the Social Liberal Party Margrethe Vestager Hansen. The key finance, justice and defence ministries meanwhile all went to Social Democrats, Bjarne Corydon, Morten Boedskov and Nick Haekkerup respectively. Thorning-Schmidt also appointed the youngest ever minister in Denmark's history: Thor Moeger Pedersen, 26, of the Socialist People's Party, who will be taxation minister. Thorning-Schmidt formally presented her government to monarch Queen Margrethe, who appointed her prime minister on Monday. Thorning-Schmidt will address the new Parliament on Tuesday as the assembly reconvenes after summer recess.
