Time for a change: The new Governmental Program

Prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and foreign minister Lene Espersen (Photo: Keld Navntoft)

The program named “Knowledge, growth, wealth and welfare” (Danish: Viden, vækst, velstand og velfærd) includes 76 proposals which the ministers will be working with.

The 10 goals

1. Denmark is to be among the world’s 10 richest nations.
2. Danish job opportunities are to be among the 10 best in the world.
3. Danish schoolchildren are to be among the most clever in the world.
4. At least one university is to be in the European Top 10.
5. Denmark is to be among the 10 countries in the world with the highest life expectancy.
6. Denmark is to be a green, sustainable society and among the world’s three most energy efficient countries.
7. Denmark is to be among the best to create equal opportunities.
8. Denmark is to be among the freest countries in the world and among the best in Europe to create integration.
9. The Danes are to be one of the world’s most trusting and safe nations.
10. The public sector is to be among the most efficient and least bureaucratic in the world.

The 76 proposals

In order to achieve these long-term goals, the government has delineated 76 concrete proposals – some of them new, others repeats of earlier proposals.

Public finances

• Public finances are to be restored so that Denmark can live up to EU requirements on inflation and deficits
• Public spending is to be kept tight, with the government developing an overall plan for the Danish economy up to 2020 to replace the current 2015 plan.

Unemployment

• Attacking the problem of youth unemployment, creating 5,000 extra apprenticeships in 2011.
• Reform of the early retirement scheme. The government will negotiate with other parliamentary parties to attempt to put the brakes on the heavy increase in Danes on early retirement.
• A reform of the student grant system so that students finish course earlier.

Schooling and research

• The government has said that all children should be able to read at the end of their second form. This by creating a new Reading Fund for schools with an annual DKK 150 million, financed through returns on finances placed at the disposal of banks.
• DKK 100 million each year from the Globalisation Pool in favour of research. An equal amount to create more cooperation between public and private research.

Life expectancy

• A new Cancer Plan III to ensure that cancer is discovered earlier.
• Improved psychiatry, DKK 820 million over the next four years.
• A new patient complaints system to ensure that it is easier for patients to complain, including setting up a Patient Ombudsman.
• Tobacco and alcohol to be made more expensive, but adversely affecting cross-border trade.

Green Denmark

• The government will present targets before the next election as to when Denmark must be free of fossil fuel.
• Electrical vehicles t be duty free until 2015.
• DKK 500 million each year from 2011-2012 so that agriculture can offset the effects of, among other things, increased pesticide levies.

Equality

• Increased inclusion of voluntary organisation in social work as well as more offers of homes for homeless people.
• An overall ghetto strategy to stop problems on estates.

Immigration

• Immigration and integration laws to be re-evaluated. Residence permits to be coupled to a points system that takes the individual’s wish to integrate into account.

Less bureaucracy

• The government is to produce a plan in 2011 to reduce bureaucracy in Denmark.
• Collegiate government in larger towns to be abolished.

Foreign policy

• The government still wants to get rid of Denmark’s EU opt-outs, but unlike the 2007 government plan, the new one does not say when the first opt-out should be sent to referendum.
• Development aid to be more focused.

Further Resources

• The complete Program in Danish as published by the prime ministry (pdf)
• View the presentation at the press conference in Danish (choose “pressemøde 24. februar 2010″)