New Danish government vows to resist Greenland pressure and tackle cost of living

Denmark’s new left-leaning government has pledged to keep pushing back against US pressure over Greenland and address the cost of living crisis, with measures including halving VAT on food and offering free public transport to young people. “We present a government that will help improve the everyday lives of Danes,” Mette Frederiksen, who will return for a third consecutive term as prime minister at the head of the four-party minority coalition, said on Tuesday. “We want to provide targeted support to those Danes who have been hit hard by rising petrol and diesel prices,” the prime minister said, adding that the measures were “concrete” and “reflect the way we want to be as a government”. Announced late on Monday , the agreement between Frederiksen’s Social Democrats, the Social Liberals, the Green Left and the centrist Moderates ended two months of uncertainty after March elections in which 12 parties won seats in parliament. The new government coalition marks a shift to the left for the 48-year-old prime minister, who for the past four years has headed an unlikely left-right alliance. With only 82 of the 179 seats in parliament, it will rely mainly on the support of the left-wing Red-Green Alliance for a parliamentary majority. The government’s immediate priorities include ongoing diplomatic talks with the US and Nato over Greenland, a Danish near-autonomous territory that Donald Trump has insisted Washington needs to control for national security reasons. …