Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen to lead four-party coalition after months of uncertainty

Social Democrat stays on for third consecutive term as PM and will outline key policies by the end of Tuesday

Denmark’s new government is preparing to formally present its political programme after Mette Frederiksen negotiated a third consecutive term as prime minister, this time at the head of a four-party, left-leaning minority coalition.

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.

“I have been to see his majesty the king and announced that a government can be formed after long negotiations,” Frederiksen told reporters, adding that the coalition’s plans would be “good for people now living in Denmark and for future generations”.

Her office said she was meeting other party leaders at the prime minister’s official residence on Tuesday and would outline the government’s key policies by the end of the day, with the full cabinet lineup to be unveiled on Wednesday.

The new government marks a shift to the left for Frederiksen, who for the past four years has headed an unlikely left-right alliance. It will rely mainly on the far-left Red-Green Alliance for a majority but can also seek backing from other parties.

It was formed only after Frederiksen – whose Social Democrats registered their lowest score since 1903 in the election but remained by far the biggest party with 38 seats in the 179-seat parliament – tried but failed to cobble together a left-leaning alliance.

The former defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen, the leader of the liberal Venstre party, then tried to put together a right-leaning coalition, also without success, before the king reappointed Frederiksen for a further attempt.

The coalition talks were the longest in Denmark’s history and analysts have said the evident difficulty in forming the government, as well as a series of scandals that have weakened Frederiksen since she became prime minister in 2019, may mean it does not survive its full term.

Frederiksen, 48, told reporters on Monday that Denmark was “one of the most solid democracies in the world”, adding: “If we political leaders cannot manage to carry out this task, I don’t know what the Danish people can expect of us.”

In municipal elections in November 2025, her party – traditionally Denmark’s biggest – finished second and lost nearly half of the municipalities it controlled, including the capital, Copenhagen. But her popularity surged early this year when she stood up to Donald Trump over the US president’s threats to annex Greenland, a Danish near-autonomous territory that he insists Washington needs to control for national security reasons.

Frederiksen warned in January that a US takeover of Greenland would amount to the end of Nato, but the crisis eased after Trump backed down, and officials from Denmark, Greenland and the US are now in talks on an Arctic security deal.

Born into a working-class family of longstanding Social Democrats, the daughter of a typographer and a preschool teacher, Frederiksen entered parliament in 2001 aged 24 and took over as leader of the Social Democrats in 2015.

She has radically tightened Denmark’s migration policy in an effort to slow rising support for the far right, while advocating stronger international commitments including staunch support for Ukraine and a huge hike in national defence spending.

Besides further Greenland diplomacy and defence spending measures, the government is expected to take steps on major campaign issues including the rising cost of living, pensions and a potential wealth tax, as well as animal rights amid growing public concern over Denmark’s booming pig farming sector.

Frederiksen has said the new government’s policy platform will address the needs of “the people who are in Denmark and for the generations to come and also for the animals”.