Denmark to hold elections as PM bets on Greenland crisis boost

By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen and Soren Jeppesen

COPENHAGEN, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Denmark will hold a parliamentary election on March 24, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Thursday, seeking to capitalise on a surge in support for her defiant stance against U.S. pressure over Greenland.

Frederiksen has spent recent months rallying European leaders against President Donald Trump's renewed interest in annexing the Arctic island, an effort that opinion polls suggest has bolstered her popularity after public dissatisfaction over rising living costs and pressures on welfare services.

"This will be a decisive election, because it will be in the next four years that we as Danes and as Europeans will really have to stand on our own feet," Frederiksen said. 

"We must define our relationship with the United States, and we must rearm to ensure peace on our continent."

LOCAL RECORD ALSO IN FOCUS

The Greenland crisis has further raised Frederiksen's profile on the international stage, boosting the standing she gained through her swift response to the COVID-19 pandemic and for building European support for Ukraine.

The election will test whether voters reward her international leadership and defence of Danish sovereignty or punish her government for what critics say has been an inattention to problems at home.

"The trust in Mette Frederiksen as a leader and her ability to navigate the Greenland and Ukraine crises will be central to the campaign," political commentator Joachim B. Olsen said.

"Her weakness is that, having been prime minister for two terms, it becomes more difficult to talk about solutions to the problems," he added. "She wants to talk about inequality, but then voters will ask why she hasn't addressed those problems until now."

Denmark's current government is an unusual cross-partisan coalition of Frederiksen's Social Democrats, the centre-right Liberal Party led by Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen, and the Moderates, led by Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the foreign minister who has twice served as prime minister.

Created in 2022 as a crisis government, the coalition stands to lose its majority, according to opinion polls, as parties reposition themselves along more traditional left-right lines.

The Social Democrats suffered a significant defeat in the 2025 municipal elections, losing the Copenhagen mayoralty for the first time in 87 years. 

While the party's support plummeted to 17% in December polls, it has since rebounded to 22% as Frederiksen's approval ratings got a lift from her handling of the Greenland dispute. In the 2022 general election, the party won 28% of the vote.

Political scientist Rune Stubager said voter concerns include food prices, welfare, inequality and immigration.

The government's 2023 decision to abolish the Great Prayer Day public holiday to fund higher defence spending was unpopular, despite broad public support for military investment.

The Green Left party, a traditional ally of the Social Democrats that is currently in opposition, has pledged to reinstate the holiday if elected, a proposal the Social Democrats have not ruled out.

Frederiksen's party also aims to emphasise its strict immigration policies, a stance that helped its 2019 victory. In January, the government proposed easing deportation rules for foreign nationals, acknowledging the potential clash with European human rights frameworks.

(Additional reporting by Stine Jacobsen and Louise Rasmussen; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Andrew Heavens)