Prepare for tough love on migration as Denmark takes over EU presidency
Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen pioneered hard-line migration policies despite being on the left. Now she’s bringing her special formula to the EU stage.
By NICHOLAS VINOCUR
Bernd von Jutrczenka/picture alliance via Getty Images
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has built a reputation for herself as Europe’s tough-love social democrat, with a hard line on migration that’s earned her more critiques from the left than from the right.
Now she’s getting a chance to test-drive that approach on the European stage.
As Denmark prepares to take over the EU’s rotating presidency from Poland in July, two EU diplomats said that Copenhagen would try to advance many of the same issues that Frederiksen has championed on the home front — namely stricter rules for asylum-seekers and a more robust approach to European defense in the face of an expansionist Russia.
This is in keeping with Frederiksen’s view, which she shared with POLITICO in March, that managing irregular migration and deterring Russia via bulked-up defense spending aren’t separate matters. They’re two sides of the same general concern for European voters: improving their day-to-day security.
“If I ask people about security and their security concerns, many of them will reply that Russia and defending Europe is top of mind right now. But security is also about what is going on in your local community,” Frederiksen said at the time.
To be sure, Brussels is a long way from Copenhagen, psychologically speaking if not geographically. Denmark’s approach to the presidency — which is bound by the need to act as an “honest broker,” i.e. acting in the interest of the entire union — may not be a top priority matter for Danish voters, who happen to be among Europe’s wariest when it comes to the EU.
But the presidency will offer Frederiksen a chance to argue that the policies she’s embraced at home are now winning much wider approval in the bloc. Indeed, everyone from Italian leader Giorgia Meloni to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and even Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is now in the Danish prime minister’s camp when it comes to advocating a stricter approach to migration.
That argument — “my approach is winning in Brussels” — could come in handy next year when Frederiksen comes up for reelection. While the 47-year-old, who’s already Europe’s longest-serving social democratic head of government, hasn’t publicly said that she will seek another term, observers of Danish politics strongly believe that she will.
Her poll numbers certainly offer a good case for a bid: As of mid-June, POLITICO’s Poll of polls showed her Social Democrats party as the most popular one in the country, with 23 percent support versus 13 percent for the next most popular, the Green Left.
“There’s a strong chance she will run again, perhaps even by calling a snap election if the numbers look good,” an ally of Frederiksen who asked not to be named to discuss her political planning said in April.
Pushing for return hubs
How will Denmark bring the Frederiksen touch to Brussels? Among other things, by trying to move along discussions between EU countries on so-called return hubs — centers located outside the bloc’s borders where migrants seeking access to the EU could remain while their applications are processed, or where they could be housed after their asylum request has been rejected.
One such center located in Albania is the subject of a legal dispute between the Italian government and local courts, but Frederiksen and Meloni are both adamant that such centers are the way forward.
After the European Commission put forward a proposal on return hubs in March, Copenhagen hopes to use its presidency to push interinstitutional dialogue forward “as far as possible,” per one of the diplomats — even if finalizing the entire process remains unlikely by the end of December, when Denmark’s presidency of the Council of the EU wraps up.
Additionally, Denmark will look to pursue other “new and innovative” ways of limiting irregular migration into the bloc, both by urging the Commission to review its interpretation of human rights statutes with a view to facilitating deportation, and by striking new investment deals with third countries, the same diplomats said.
Both approaches have already won considerable support from other EU leaders. Nine countries, including Denmark, called in May for the EU to revise its interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights.
For the next six months, migration hard-liners will have a well-placed ally in Brussels.
Common ground on defense
Also crucial for Frederiksen’s legacy: defense.
Denmark has pushed back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland, an autonomous Danish-dependent territory. And Frederiksen is one of Europe’s loudest voices on the need to deter Russia, saying in her POLITICO interview that the bloc should become self-reliant on defense within the next five years.
In terms of the presidency, that translates to pushing forward discussions about European defense readiness and shared projects, the diplomats said.
While Copenhagen is unlikely to embrace the idea, touted by Southern European countries, that the bloc should jointly raise debt to finance the defense ramp-up, Copenhagen will be on the lookout for common defense projects of interest to all EU states.
The idea, per the same diplomats, is to identify projects that would be of interest for all EU countries — shared midair refueling capacity, for instance — and then broach the issue of how to raise money for it. A conversation about raising money jointly will be easier to have if everyone agrees on the project, argue the same diplomats cited above.
Avoiding ‘slow agony’
Beyond defense and migration, Denmark’s ambassador to the EU, Carsten Grønbech-Jensen, will also have his hands full shepherding discussions around a potential expansion of the EU to new members such as Ukraine and Moldova. And there is also a focus on economic reforms, or “competitiveness” in the EU lingo, to try to stave off what former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi warned would be a “slow agony” for Europe’s economy if necessary reforms aren’t undertaken.
In this area, Denmark may tread more gingerly.
Draghi has identified the need to unify Europe’s fragmented capital markets as being crucial for the bloc’s economic survival against bigger competitors such as China and the U.S. But Copenhagen will press the matter only if “a window of opportunity” appears — which looks doubtful given the failure of other, recent attempts to establish Europe’s capital markets union.
All in all, during the next six months Denmark’s prime minister will be looking to notch up wins in the areas that have worked for her back home. Those ideas, combining European social welfare policies with strict migration controls, seem to be catching on with an ever-wider group of EU leaders.
Whether Danish voters will reward Frederiksen for her European leadership when it comes time to head to the polls next year remains to be seen.
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