Opposition’s Unified Front in Budget Negotiations
As budget negotiations for next year continue today, the four blue opposition parties once again join forces.
This time presenting five additional proposals to Finance Minister Nicolai Wammen (S).
Normally, Wammen negotiates with parties individually in a specific format, as described by DR’s political analyst Jens Ringberg as Wammen’s “unique negotiation method.”
He did not seem impressed when the four blue parties, Liberal Alliance, Danmarksdemokraterne, De Konservative, and Dansk Folkeparti, came together for a meeting before the autumn break with five proposals for the budget.
Nevertheless, he has chosen to invite the blue bloc as a whole to negotiation today, according to Danmarksdemokraternes’ finance spokesperson, Dennis Flydtkjær.
He hopes that the united blue front can push the negotiation reserve of 500 million kroner higher. The negotiation reserve is the amount the government allows other parties to negotiate in budget negotiations.
– We believe that by pooling our mandates and negotiating together, we can pressure the government to give us more,” he says.
Development Aid and Solar Panels
Among the five new proposals from the blue parties is that a portion of development aid should be targeted towards persecuted religious minorities.
The parties also propose to allocate 100 million kroner for an experimental scheme for caring for elderly family members, and to allocate 200 million kroner to tighten the use of parole from Danish prisons.
Furthermore, the installation of solar panels on rooftops should be included in the residential job scheme, while a fund should also be set up for smaller initiatives, according to the parties.
The total of ten proposals for the budget, totaling two billion kroner, has not been ranked in advance by the parties, says Ole Birk Olesen, finance spokesperson for Liberal Alliance.
He explains that the parties’ united front is about being stronger in negotiations.
– Our analysis is that if we come together, it is harder for him (Wammen, ed.) to just give a small thing to one party, and then the others get left out,” says Ole Birk Olesen.
De Konservative’s finance spokesperson, Rasmus Jarlov, shares that analysis.
He says that overall, there are no “major shifts” that the parties consider realistic to include in the budget.
– We have many wishes. But it is also within a framework of what we believe is realistic to negotiate with a not so compromising government,” he says.
Signal to Venstre
According to Dansk Folkeparti’s finance spokesperson, Peter Kofod, the proposals show the blue bloc in its “best light.”
– I think it is entirely appropriate that the four blue parties show here that they can come up with a joint proposal to the finance minister, which is even over-financed,” he says.
It is also about sending a signal to, among others, Venstre, according to Dennis Flydtkjær, Ole Birk Olesen, and Peter Kofod.
– I would like to acknowledge that it is also because we want to show the Danes, but also Venstre, that we are actually a united blue bloc that can provide an alternative to the center-right government that is in power now,” says Flydtkjær.
Ole Birk Olesen says that the parties “with growing irritation” hear, among others, Venstre chairman Troels Lund Poulsen talk about a lack of “common ground” among the blue parties.
– It annoys us, because there are regular and good meetings between the party leaders, and we find it very easy to create such a joint budget catalog,” he says.
– So we would like to show that there is no truth to the claim that there is no alternative to the current government,” he says.
Rasmus Jarlov puts it differently:
– It (negotiating together, ed.) has nothing to do with Venstre, but I think it should be noted that we actually agree a lot on economic policy,” he says.