The Local Denmark’s Editor Mike Barrett says goodbye, before running through the current standings after Denmark’s general election this week.
My nine-year stint as editor of The Local Denmark comes to an end on March 31st, when I’ll be leaving to switch to a job in a different sector.
After such a long time in the seat it can take a bit of letting go, but the website is in great hands with my colleague Becky Waterton taking over daily editorial duties.
Denmark is not the same as it was over a decade ago when I first started making freelance contributions to The Local. A great example of this is one of my very first articles from late 2015: A President Trump could affect Denmark ties to US.
The article is full of quotes as prescient as they are naive. Perhaps the best example is Søren Espersen, then-chairman of parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee and senior member of the far-right Danish People’s Party.
Espersen said Trump’s election “would mean there would be lots of things we [in Denmark] would have to review. At the moment, we almost blindly follow the US and are always prepared to support them. It is not certain that would continue were Trump to be elected.”
We’re now living in a time of US threats over Greenland, accusations of spying on Denmark and Danes boycotting US-made products, things that would have seemed completely outlandish back then.
Denmark has changed in lots of other ways too. In 2015, Lars Løkke Rasmussen was prime minister and Inger Støjberg was immigration minister before they ended up both leaving the Liberals and forming new parties that now work directly against each other.
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Hardline immigration policies like the jewellery law and burqa ban were frequent reasons for Denmark making the international news.
Hygge had only just become a concept known to people not familiar with the Danish language. Today, people are embracing all kinds of Nordic lifestyle trends, helping to soften Denmark’s image.
The Copenhagen Metro was extended, Aarhus and Odense built Light Rail systems, there’s a bridge over Copenhagen Harbour that wasn’t there before, the country lived through a pandemic, Queen Margrethe abdicated and King Frederik succeeded her.
Børnehave (kindergarten) kids from 2015 are now teenagers and Denmark’s gen-Z has entered the workplace and introduced terminology distinct from that used by the young people of a decade ago.
I was single and fresh out of Aarhus University when I wrote my first article for The Local in November 2015. Today I’m married with two children, a cat and my own home.
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I’ve lived these major life events, and the smaller ones that go along with them, as a foreign national in Denmark: something I have in common with many of our readers.
One of the strengths of The Local is that it’s staffed by real people, writers who are living the same experiences as the people that read our articles.
Reporting Denmark’s news in English also means showcasing the many, many rule changes and policy announcements which directly impact foreign residents.
This covers topics like citizenship, work permits and family reunification as well as more social aspects like getting to know Danes, tackling the jobs market and fitting in at Danish workplaces (something I will now have to do myself as I bid farewell to The Local’s international team).
Because of this variation of work, I’ve been able to write about a whole range of different things and in different styles. Please humour me as I give three of my favourite articles I’ve written as examples.
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In 2022 we covered Danish authorities’ failure to inform a section of British residents about updating their residence permits ahead of a Brexit deadline. This left people with genuine concerns about deportation, before the government eventually decided to extend the deadline. I felt we made a difference on the issue.
During my first year, when filling in on The Local Norway, I wrote an obituary for one of the American crewmates of legendary adventurer Thor Heyerdahl. I still regularly think about the subject of that article and the extraordinary things he did in his lifetime.
I also wrote the occasional observational article about Danish habits. This one, written on a dreary autumn afternoon at my father-in-law’s house, explained my frustration over the Danish habit of liberally using English swear words in front of (my) children. It didn’t take long to write. As the Danes would say, den lå lige til højrebenet.
Living in Denmark as a foreigner throws up so many different challenges and we often ask our readers to share their experiences in surveys and articles, or in our comments sections.
The support and feedback we get there, as well as the emails I receive from helpful readers, reinforces the idea in my mind that we’re a community that has much to offer each other.
Thank you for reading my articles over the years!
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Election news
Tuesday’s close-run general election resulted in neither the left nor right-wing bloc of parties taking an overall majority.
Negotiations to form the next government, led by interim prime minister Mette Frederiksen, could stretch out.
Frederiksen wants to form a government with the Green Left (SF) and the Social Liberals (Radikale Venstre), with the support of the entire left wing bloc and the non-aligned centrist Moderates.
This is not as easy as it sounds (does it sound easy?) because it involves the far-left party Red-Green Alliance agreeing with the Moderates to back Frederiksen as PM.
That seemed far from likely before the election, when the former party said it would only give its support to Frederiksen if she put together a left-wing government, thereby excluding the Moderates from any kind of influence.
But Red-Green Alliance lead political spokesperson Pelle Dragsted said he will “try” to work with the Moderates, led by Lars Løkke Rasmussen.
“As Lars Løkke Rasmussen says, there’s a long way from the Red Green Alliance to the Moderates,” Dragsted said.
“But we think it’s our duty to try. Otherwise we risk sending power over to [far-right party leader] Morten Messerschmidt with all the consequences that would have for our international relations and environmental ambitions,” he said.
“I think we owe it to each other to try,” he said.
Talks have now begun with each of the parties on the left as well as the Moderates invited for discussions with Frederiksen’s Social Democrats.
Both SF and the Social Liberals were at parliament for this purpose on Friday. Social Liberal leader Martin Lidegaard said his “ultimate demand” was to be part of a coalition government, while SF’s Pia Olsen Dyhr said she “thinks this will take some time” given the total of 68 seats – well short of the 90 needed for a majority – the two parties can muster along with the Social Democrats.
Should talks on the left wing fail, the right wing parties would probably face even more obstacles in getting all of the parties within the group to agree on a government.
To give you an idea of the tricky puzzle that must be put together, have a go at building your own Danish government, based on the seats won by each party in the election, with our handy election widget.