NEWS
THE COPENHAGEN POST CPHPOST.DK
6 - 12 January 2012
3 PHOTOS: SCANPIX
In her New Year’s speech, Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt kept expectations low
2,361,000 viewers tuned in to watch the queen’s address to the nation
Prime minister tells nation that tough times are ahead
Queen’s New Year’s Eve speech strained her subjects’ patience
JUSTIN CREMER
JENNIFER BULEY
In her debut New Year’s speech, Helle Thorning-Schmidt said that problems will continue throughout 2012
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GAINST a backdrop of burning candles and plummeting opinion polls, Helle ThorningSchmidt gave her first New Year’s speech to the nation as prime minister on Sunday. Also hanging over ThorningSchmidt’s head – and permeating much of what the Socialdemokrat said – was the global economic crisis and its effect on Denmark. “Our goal is to bring Denmark safely through the crisis and out on the other side with our wealth, decency and solicitude in tact,” Thorning-Schmidt said. “It won’t be easy. But we can if we will. The new year – 2012 – will not be the year when we free ourselves from our problems. We must admit that now.” Thorning-Schmidt then used her family’s history to indicate that Denmark has seen – and overcome – difficult times before. “From generation to generation – my grandmother’s, my mother’s, my own – Denmark has become a better country to live in,” she said. While not overtly political, Thorning-Schmidt’s speech
Economy continued from front page
professor Philipp Schröder told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. Schröder and various business leaders noted, however, that an actual sales downturn could still follow in the wake of the debt crisis, assuming it continues to worsen. With cautious optimism, 40 percent of the Danish com-
did cast blame for the nation’s economic situation on her predecessors in the previous VenstreKonservative (VK) government. “Many acted as if the good times would just continue and continue. Consumer spending grew beyond its means and housing prices skyrocketed. Tax breaks were given, even though we could not afford them. And Denmark was not adequately prepared for the bad times. There was no control over the economy. Therefore we have a deficit in the public finances of around 100 billion kroner, and maybe even more than that. It is a staggering amount of money. The deficit means that we pay for welfare with money we do not have.” In light of the economic difficulties, Thorning-Schmidt said that everyone must be willing to make sacrifices. “Many will experience changes. Many will be asked to pull extra weight. And yes, we will experience job cuts and scalebacks. In the near future we must make decisions that will be among the most difficult in our history.” In addition to the economy, Thorning-Schmidt also used the speech to praise the efforts of Danish troops in Afghanistan, Denmark’s support of the Arab Spring, and Denmark’s sixmonth EU presidency, which began on January 1. “Everything that happens in
Europe affects us here at home,” she said. “Therefore, we should use every opportunity to affect what happens in Europe. The next half year we have an opportunity to push Europe a small, but important, step in the right direction.” Thorning-Schmidt’s speech was largely criticised by political analysts for lacking any concrete solutions. “When Helle-Thorning Schmidt doesn’t use her New Year’s speech debut to present concrete suggestions for political initiatives, it was clearly a conscious decision,” public broadcaster DR’s political analyst Jens Ringberg said. “This [was] a speech where she paints a picture of the crisis agenda, gives expectations in relation to Danes’ behaviour – that we shouldn’t expect good times – and then just points a moral finger. It’s a gamble.” Political analyst Rasmus Nielsen of the online news source Alting agreed. “Of course the governmental common policy is only three months old. But there has been no implementation of it,” Nielsen told Politiken newspaper. “The prime minister says that many lean years are ahead and that the government in 2012 will help to provide a remedy to the crisis, but she doesn’t indicate how exactly they will do that, and that is a weak point.”
panies questioned in the poll were expecting growth and the need for new hires in 2012 – although some of those hires will be at their overseas outposts. Just ten percent of the Danish companies surveyed foresaw layoffs in the next 12 months, JyllandsPosten reported. However, despite these bright spots – and a 19 billion kroner ‘kickstart’ that the government is investing over two years into infrastructure
projects as part of its 20122013 budget – a majority of Danes remained pessimistic about the country’s economic outlook, according to another recent Rambøll survey. “There isn’t a lot of optimism left out there,” Steen Bocian, a chief financial analyst at Danske Bank, told Jyllands-Posten. And that leaves economic analysts hoping that these economic worries won’t become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Her Majesty’s advice about jobhunting and sacrifice was not well-received by all
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O-ONE – not even the queen – was immune to worries about the economy and the EU this year. In her annual televised New Year’s Eve speech, Queen Margrethe mused about the tough times so many Danes and foreigners are facing in these days of renewed recession. She encouraged listeners – an estimated 75 percent of the Danish public tune in each New Year’s Eve at 6pm to hear her annual speech – to “look at the problems straight on and do something about them”, “to pull oneself together”, and to be open-minded enough to consider changing careers or moving to a new town to pursue job opportunities. “We cannot expect others or circumstances to carry us through the crisis. We ourselves must find that place from which we can act – both mentally and concretely,” the queen said. In addition to soldiers, police and professional caregivers,
whom she traditionally thanks each year for their efforts and sacrifices, the queen gave special praise to volunteers for the work they do and encouraged all citizens to volunteer in the coming year. Volunteers provide “a help that counts for more than we often realise,” Queen Margrethe said. “I thank them and send them a New Year’s greeting.” While the queen’s practical comments about the global economic crisis, unemployment and pitching in were praised by some, those very comments struck a sour note with several Jyllands-Posten readers, who remarked that she is the person least likely to understand the plight of the common man and woman. “I think it’s lovely that we should stand shoulder to shoulder and work ourselves out of this crisis, but god knows what the queen’s contribution actually is,” wrote Viktor Berg from Aarhus. Rolf Larsen from Borup remarked on the irony that Queen Margrethe was telling unemployed people how to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. “Easy for her to say. She has a job that she can’t be fired from
She has a job that she can’t be fired from at present, and it’s a little tiring to hear her go on about how we should pull ourselves together and sacrifice, when all of us must pay for her upkeep at present, and it’s a little tiring to hear her go on about how we should pull ourselves together and sacrifice, when all of us must pay for her upkeep. Honestly!” he wrote. Another reader, Børge Jensen from Copenhagen, took the opportunity to congratulate Queen Margrethe on the one million kroner pay raise she’s getting in the 2012 budget. “It must be nice to get a pay raise, while the rest of us must ‘move to another town’ to be able to work for you and the rest of welfare-Denmark. Congratulations and Happy New Year!”