COPENHAGEN – Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will face lawmakers in parliament on Wednesday as the long-running mink scandal returns to the political stage five years after a nationwide cull she ordered proved to have no legal basis.
New documents have revived scrutiny over what the Social Democrat PM knew at the time and whether officials withheld key information from parliament. Media and opposition parties are specifically interested in the text messages exchanged between Frederiksen and the State Department’s permanent secretary, Barbara Bertelsen. Both were central to the decision to conduct an illegal nationwide culling.
During a 2021 commission investigating the events surrounding the mink case, it emerged that Frederiksen had configured her phone to automatically delete text messages after 30 days. In December that year, then-Justice Minister Nick Hækkerup told Parliament that some of the country’s top IT specialists had examined the issue and had “carried out all relevant investigations.”
However, according to a document obtained by Berlingske and BT, a Danish Defence Intelligence Service official indicated that all recovery options for the messages had not been exhausted, contradicting
. This contradicts earlier assurances from both Frederiksen’s former single-party government and her current coalition that every possible effort had been made to retrieve the texts. Opposition parties are now demanding explanations as to why Parliament was never informed.
“I am, to say the least, shocked,” said Inger Støjberg, leader of the conservative opposition Danish Democrats.
Political pressure intensifies
For a time, it seemed the mink case had subsided. But now, nearly all opposition parties – with the exception of the populist Citizens’ Party – have called for an urgent inquiry.
Frederiksen, meanwhile, has remained tight-lipped. In a recent live interview with DR, she declined multiple times to comment on the new evidence, saying only that she has “no further comments on the matter.”
Nevertheless, the mink scandal remains one of Denmark’s most consequential political crises. It emerged when Frederiksen was riding high with record approval ratings and quickly fueled accusations of overreach, said political analyst Helle Ib.
“Mette Frederiksen was criticized for being power-hungry and for centralizing power around herself,” Ib said.
The scandal ultimately triggered an election in 2022, when the social-liberal party wavered in its support for the government. Frederiksen survived the election, but according to Elisabet Svane, a political analyst at the Danish newspaper Politiken, the mink case continues to take a toll on the prime minister today.
“Right now, she’s under a lot of pressure. More pressure than she’s been under for a long time,” Svane said.
Regardless of Frederiksen’s responses at Wednesday’s hearing, political analyst Ib expects the most critical parties to continue their attacks.
“My assessment is that the debate will likely generate a lot of noise and irritate the Social Democrats,” she said.
From a legal standpoint, however, analysts do not expect the case to have major repercussions.
Race against the legal clock
Adding to the pressure, the case will reach its five-year statute of limitations in less than two weeks.
The new revelations have prompted several parties to propose extending the statute of limitations to expire only once a minister leaves office. Frederiksen’s Social Democrats have signaled openness to discussing such a reform. Still, the party’s lawmakers oppose any fast-tracked procedure that would make the change retroactively applicable to the mink case.
In theory, the opposition could still secure a majority to change the law. However, that would require almost every MP outside the three governing parties – Frederiksen’s Social Democrats, the Liberals, and the Moderates – to vote in favour.
The opposition Green Left Party has already ruled out that option, calling it a “witch hunt” from right-wing parties ahead of the elections.
Even if there are no legal consequences, the political fallout remains. For Ib, it is quite clear that the opposition is trying, ahead of next year’s elections, to fuel the notion that Frederiksen “got off too easy.”
Euractiv has requested comment from the Prime Minister’s Office. They referred journalists to the Danish Department of Justice, which has not responded at the time of publication.
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