Mette Frederiksen announces Denmark will hold snap election on March 24

Politico Europe · Feb 26, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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News Politics The center-left prime minister has experienced a surge of support after she rebuffed U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid to seize Greenland. Copy Link Copied Share via email Share on X Share on WhatsApp Share on LinkedIn With less than a year left in the current parliamentary term, the country was due to go to the polls no later than Oct. 31. | Kristian Tuxen Ladegaard Berg/NurPhoto via Getty Images February 26, 2026 1:25 pm CET Denmark will hold a snap election next month, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced Thursday. “I have recommended to King Frederik that elections be held on March 24,” Frederiksen told lawmakers during a plenary session of the Danish parliament in Copenhagen. With less than a year left in the current parliamentary term, the country was due to go to the polls no later than Oct. 31. But the decision to move up the date of the vote is likely based on the surge of support Frederiksen’s ruling Social Democrats have experienced as a result of U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive threats to annex Greenland. Frederiksen directly referenced Copenhagen’s ongoing tensions with Washington in her speech in parliament, and said her now-caretaker government would remain vigilant in the lead-up to the March vote. “Even though there is now an election campaign in Denmark, the world out there is not waiting,” she said. “As everyone knows, the conflict over Greenland is not over yet. The government will of course continue to look after Denmark’s interests.” The governing Social Democrats suffered a dramatic defeat in December’s nationwide municipal elections, but the party has seen its poll ratings jump thanks to Frederiksen’s impassioned defense of Denmark’s sovereignty. According to the latest voter surveys, the prime minister’s party could net 22 percent of the vote, nearly doubling the share that her closest competitors, the Green Left, are projected to secure. Frederiksen currently governs in coalition with the centrist Liberals and Moderates, but many of her party’s progressive supporters have called for greater collaboration with left-wing groups. In the domestic arena, the governing Social Democrats have been criticized for their lackluster response to a growing housing crisis and a perceived rightward turn. The prime minister on Thursday declined to say with whom she would seek to govern if she wins the upcoming election, adding that she could conceive of a repeat partnership with “the political middle” as easily as an alliance with the left. “I am not ruling anything out in advance,” she said. “In the times we live in, I will refrain from making ultimate demands.” Jakob Weizman and Sebastian Starcevic contributed to this report.