Experienced cleaning boy new Danish Minister of Defense
Analyze
Controversial Trine Bramsen is replaced by controversial Morten Bødskov as Denmark’s Minister of Defense.
Bramsen continues in the Social Democratic government, but is in practice kicked down the ranks as the new Minister of State with responsibility for gender equality and the transport of the flat country.
Bødskov’s position will be strengthened when the Minister of Taxation becomes Minister of Defense. He thus also gets a seat on the government’s security committee.
Random shift
Friday’s change of guard at the Ministry of Defence’s head office came a bit by accident. It was part of a castling that was forced out of distrust of the Minister of Transport.
It has stormed so much around Bramsen that it is both natural and surprising that she resigns as Minister of Defense. Surprising because a lot of criticism of a minister from political opponents can make a head of government stubborn and keep him clean.
– Trine Bramsen has been a skilled Minister of Defense and handled a number of difficult cases, said Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen on Friday, adding: – It is not a question of whether she is the right woman in the Ministry of Defense.
At the same time, it is natural that Bramsen gets something else to do. The next long-term plan for the Danish Armed Forces will enter into force from 2024. Work is already underway. Then it may be beneficial to have a new Minister of Defense, because Bramsen has come to terms with several parties that are being sought for the broadest possible settlement. The relationship with the Armed Forces’ leadership has also not been frictionless, to say the least.
There has been a lot of unrest around Bramsen. When the Taliban were well on their way to conquering Kabul, she traveled to Ærø south of Funen. She herself said it was a service trip and did not realize how bad it was in Afghanistan. Critics say she went there as part of the election campaign ahead of last year’s local elections.
No Danish Hultqvist
At the same time, it would have been to give the critics the right if Bramsen had disappeared completely from the government.
Bramsen has never been given a position in Denmark as her party comrade Peter Hultqvist has held in Sweden. For almost a year, he has been one of the safest cards in the red-green government. Even the bourgeois opposition long regarded Hultqvist as the best they could have in the Ministry of Defense.
Opinions:
A Commission on Security
Former Prime Minister Stefan Löfven put his position in practice to keep Hultqvist when a majority in the Riksdag demanded, among other things. his resignation in connection with the IT scandal in 2017. Bramsen has not held such a position with Prime Minister Fredriksen.
Experienced slugger
Odd Roger Enoksen’s new Danish colleague has a formidable cleaning job ahead of him. As Minister of Taxation, he has had more than enough to contend with. More is waiting in the Ministry of Defense. There, the chin slips have come again and again in recent years, with, among other things, a power struggle between the Minister and the leaders of the defense.
In addition, Denmark is plagued by an extensive intelligence scandal, in which both a former Minister of Defense and a former intelligence chief are linked to criminal acts and danger to the nation’s security.
Ironically, the change of minister in the Ministry of Defense took place at the same time as the City Court in Copenhagen was to decide whether the detention of the former head of the Defense Intelligence Service, Lars Findsen, was to be extended.
Rødt’s sister party was behind it
In Norway, Rødt is leading the way in opinion polls. In Denmark, they have a big sister party, the Unity List. In recent years, the party has made its mark in our neighboring country in the south, including several difficult and young female party leaders.
Opinions:
The research-based foundation is undoubtedly important
As Bjørnar Moxnes started the process that forced current FRP leader Sylvi Listhaug to resign as Minister of Justice in 2018, the Unity List is behind Transport Minister Benny Engelbrecht having to resign due to a sin of omission.
He had held back CO2calculations in a large infrastructure plan for the construction of e.g. new highways. The bourgeois opposition declared its distrust, and when the Unity List followed up, there was a majority – and the minister had to resign crying.
“It is the Unity List’s decision,” said Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen.
Lying and having to get off
In 2013, Minister of Justice Morten Bødskov experienced a crash landing in his political career. Even then, it was the Unity List that was behind it.
Bødskov admitted to having lied to the Folketing when he had a politician’s visit to the free town of Christiania canceled. The Justice Committee in the Folketing was to visit the free city of Christiania in 2012. The Minister of Justice found out that they should not – and did not play with open cards.
Pia Kjærsgaard and another top politician in the Danish People’s Party were to join. It believed the Police Intelligence Service increased the risk with the visit. Bødskov, however, kept it to himself, and did not inform the committee about it.
Instead, he fabricated an untrue explanation that visits had to be canceled because Copenhagen’s police director could not attend.
It was this false explanation that forced him to resign because the Unity List had lost confidence in Justice Minister Bødskov. He had to leave because of something the reddest support party thought was “very serious” and “extremely worrying”, as the Unity List’s then justice spokeswoman Pernille Skipper put it.
Demanding posts
One of Denmark’s heaviest politicians in the last twenty years, the Liberal Party’s Claus Hjort Frederiksen, was Minister of Defense from 2016 to 2019. Now he is accused of violating the duty of confidentiality.
Hjort Fredriksen was replaced by Trine Bramsen. And now Morten Bødskov will clean up.
He can take comfort in the fact that forgiveness is possible in Danish politics. The current Minister of Foreign Affairs only had to go out in the cold for a few years after a “Metoo” case in 2008. It may be a fired as Minister of Justice due to untruths in 2013 get up as a cleaning boy in the Ministry of Defense.