After over a year with the corona as a fixed part of life, society is now reopening to its normal self from before the corona.
The holding of the Folkemødet after last year’s cancellation is a sign of that. It’s good enough in an amputated version, and probably why the Prime Minister could wander around more undisturbed.
Singer Alberta warmed up for Frederiksen’s party leadership speech on Friday by, among other things, singing “Bright Nights”, which was popular when society was most shut down during the corona crisis.
Mette Frederiksen sat in the front row in front of the Folkemødet’s main stage and sang along, while the sun blazed down over Allinge with 27-28 degrees.
Speaking of corona. Then, of course, the worldwide virus has marked a good portion of the government’s first two years in power. When the date rounds June 27, Mette Frederiksen has been prime minister for two years, ie halfway through a full term in office.
And she and the government are doing quite well. That is the opinion of the Althingi’s political commentator, Erik Holstein.
– It is very clear what Mette Frederiksen’s project is, and I think that is a great strength. That they have an ideological benchmark for what they do is important, says Holstein.
But there are challenges on the horizon. Holstein estimates that relations with the support parties in particular have become more strained. Perhaps most to the Unity List and the Radicals.
– There are some cases that will land after the summer. For example, the question of the Benefits Commission, where the government must be careful if they are to include the Unity List.
– The relationship with the Radical Left is also increasingly miserable. Both because they did not get into government two years ago and because not much has happened in foreign policy, he says.
Mette Frederiksen did not have time for Ritzau on Friday after her party leader speech. On Thursday, however, she entered the government’s first two years at an event in Allinge.
She acknowledged that the corona crisis has been a huge challenge.
– I experience that the vast majority of Danes know how difficult it has been to lead a country through a pandemic. You will probably not get a more difficult task with this position.
– When we stood at the press conference on March 11 last year and shut down Denmark, we did not really know what we were actually doing.
– We did not know what we were facing, we did not know the consequences. Neither of making another choice nor the choice we made that day, she said Thursday, referring to the press conference at which the first major shutdown was announced.
But, she also said:
– Now you can see the result. We did not get a third wave, as many other countries did.
The Liberal Party’s chairman, Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, praises the Prime Minister for shutting down society quickly when the corona infection began to hit Denmark last year. But then it went downhill from there, he thinks.
– If you put the corona away a little, then we have a government that has systematically and purposefully made Denmark poorer. Which has made it more expensive to be Danish. Which has curtailed free choice, he says.
Regarding the government’s corona handling, the chairman of the Liberal Party says:
– You have to be careful not to be too clever here. But I will stick to the things I challenged along the way. The lack of involvement of the Folketing was wrong.
He refers, among other things, to the first temporary epidemic law, which according to Ellemann-Jensen ended up “driving the rest of us out on a siding”.
– The mink case also stands for me as a democratic scandal, because against better knowledge, they went out and closed an entire profession with a flick of the finger. It has cost people their life’s work, and it has cost Danish taxpayers many billions of kroner, says Ellemann-Jensen.
He refers to the mink case where millions of mink had to be killed because a coronavirus had mutated among mink and had spread to humans.
Source: The Nordic Page