Mette Frederiksen

Mette Frederiksen (born 19 November 1977) is a Danish politician who has served as prime minister of Denmark since June 2019, and leader of the Social Democrats since June 2015.

The second woman to hold either office, she is also the youngest prime minister in Danish history, the first to be born after Margrethe II's accession to the throne, and the first to serve under Frederik X.

She was born 19 November 1977 in the city of Aalborg in North Denmark.

Frederiksen's father was a typographer and her mother was a teacher.

As a teenager, she campaigned to preserve rain forests, protect whales and end apartheid.

Frederiksen attended the Aalborghus Gymnasium.

She holds a bachelor's degree in Administration and Social Science from Aalborg University, and a master's degree in African Studies from the University of Copenhagen.

Frederiksen worked as a youth consultant for LO, The Danish Confederation of Trade Unions.

Besides a brief career as a trade unionist (2000–2001), Frederiksen has never had any employment outside politics.

She was first elected to the Folketing in the 2001 general election, representing Copenhagen County.

She was elected as a member of parliament for Copenhagen County in the 2001 general election which saw the Social Democrats losing the first place and placing second for the first time since 1920.

After her election, Frederiksen was named as her party's spokesperson for culture, media and gender equality.

In 2002, she received the Nina Bang award for showing political courage, enthusiasm and impact with social feeling.

After the 2005 general election loss, Frederiksen became her party's spokesperson for social affairs.

Following the election, she also served as the vice-chairperson of the parliamentary group of the Social Democrats.

In the 2007 general election which saw the Social Democrats losing two more seats, Frederiksen obtained 27,077 votes, placing her in seventh place in the ranking of the ten Danish politicians with the most votes.

After the Social Democrats won the 2011 general election, she was appointed Minister of Employment by Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

After the 2011 general election which led to a Social Democrats government, Frederiksen served under Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt as Minister for Employment from 2011 to 2014 and Minister of Justice from 2014 until she succeeded her as party leader.

As Minister of Employment, she headed for reforms of early retirement pensions, flex jobs and the employment system.

Likewise, the controversial cash assistance reform meant lower cash benefits for young unemployed and provided cohabiting mutual support, among other things.

In addition, she received the Ting Prize in 2012 and has co-authored the books Epostler (2003) and From Fight to Culture (2004).

She was promoted to Minister of Justice in 2014.

After the Social Democrats' narrow defeat in the 2015 general election, Thorning-Schmidt stood down, and Frederiksen won the subsequent leadership election to replace her, becoming Leader of the Opposition.

Under Frederiksen's leadership starting after the 2015 general election in which the Social Democrats returned to first place and gained three seats in the Folketing, the party has moved back to the left on economic issues while taking a conservative stance on immigration.

Frederiksen led her party into the 2019 general election, which resulted in the bloc of left-wing and centre-left parties (her Social Democrats, the Social Liberals, the Socialist People's Party, the Red–Green Alliance, the Faroese Social Democratic Party, and Greenland's Siumut and Inuit Ataqatigiit) winning a majority in the Folketing.

Frederiksen was subsequently commissioned by Queen Margrethe II to lead negotiations to form a new government, and was sworn in as prime minister on 27 June.

In December 2021, she became the longest-serving incumbent female head of government in the European Union.

In July 2022, the Mink Commission released a report that criticized Frederiksen's government's handling of the Cluster 5 COVID-19 outbreak among Danish mink, though it absolved Frederiksen of deliberate misleading of the public.

The Danish Social Liberal Party brought an ultimatum against Frederiksen threatening to bring a motion of no confidence against her government if she did not call for an early election.

On 5 October 2022, Frederiksen announced that an election was to be held on 1 November of the same year.

The election resulted in the best result for the Social Democrats in 20 years with the party gaining two more seats for a total of 50.

Frederiksen herself received 60,837 votes, the most of any candidate.

On 13 December 2022, Frederiksen announced that an accord on a coalition government with the Social Democrats, Venstre (Denmark's liberal party) and the Moderates had been reached, with herself continuing as prime minister.

The 2019 general election saw the Social Democrats gaining a further seat while support for the Danish People's Party and the Liberal Alliance collapsed, costing Lars Løkke Rasmussen his majority.

With the result beyond doubt on election night, Rasmussen conceded defeat.

Frederiksen was appointed prime minister on 27 June 2019, heading an exclusively Social Democratic minority government supported by the red bloc of the Social Liberal Party, the Red-Green Alliance and the Green Left.

Despite having run on an anti-immigration stance during the election, Frederiksen briefly shifted her stance on immigration by allowing more foreign labour and reversing government plans to hold foreign criminals offshore after winning government.

At a press conference on 4 November 2020, Mette Frederiksen stated that the government had decided that all mink in Denmark should be killed due to the risk of infection with COVID-19.

Subsequently, it emerged that this order was illegal and was described by many as being in violation of the Constitution.

The government came up with changing explanations and several parties in the Folketing demanded an account of the mink case.