Denmark government talks have suffered another major setback after Troels Lund Poulsen abandoned his attempt to form a blue VLAK minority government. The Venstre leader told King Frederik on Friday evening that he could not form a government, after Lars Løkke Rasmussen and the Moderates (Moderaterne) rejected the proposal. A new King’s Round (kongerunde) will now be held on Saturday, with the process likely to move back towards Mette Frederiksen.
Troels Lund Poulsen gives up after Løkke rejects VLAK
Troels Lund Poulsen’s attempt to form a government collapsed after the Moderates made clear that they would not support a cabinet made up of Venstre (Liberals), Liberal Alliance and the Conservatives (Det Konservative Folkeparti).
The proposed VLAK cabinet would have held only 46 seats in the Folketing and would therefore have depended on outside support from other parties. Its survival would have required, at minimum, that the Moderates did not vote it down.
That condition failed. Løkke rejected the plan, arguing that a small centre-right minority government would in practice depend too heavily on the far-right Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti) and the outer right. Without the Moderates’ tolerance, Lund Poulsen had no realistic path forward.
At a press conference, the Venstre leader said he had insisted on discussing political content rather than personalities, but had to conclude that the effort had not succeeded. He then announced that he would go to the King and report that he could not form a government.
The Royal House confirms a new King’s Round
King Frederik received Lund Poulsen at Amalienborg at 20:30 on Friday evening. According to the Royal House, the Venstre leader informed the King that he had not been able to form a government under the mandate he received after the previous King’s Round on 8 May.
The King then spoke with acting Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. She advised that representatives of the political parties should be summoned again to state who they now believe should lead the negotiations on forming a government.
The new King’s Round will take place on Saturday 23 May from 11:00 at Frederik VIII’s Palace at Amalienborg. It will be the latest stage in what Danish media have described as the longest government formation process in the country’s history.
Løkke says VLAK would be an unsafe course
Løkke framed his rejection of VLAK through a maritime metaphor. He said the Moderates were being asked to launch a ship with Troels Lund Poulsen as captain, Liberal Alliance leader Alex Vanopslagh and Conservative leader Mona Juul as officers, and Dansk Folkeparti leader Morten Messerschmidt as what he described as the de facto navigator.
For Løkke, that was not a stable arrangement. He argued that Denmark needed a government able to reach across the political centre, especially in the current security situation.
The Moderates had supported Lund Poulsen as royal investigator in order to test whether a broader solution could be found. Løkke now says that Venstre did not sufficiently try to build a government across the middle and did not include the centre in the proposed cabinet.
That is the decisive point. The Moderates did not reject all cooperation with Venstre. They rejected a model in which they would support from outside a government they saw as too small, too right-leaning and too dependent on parties they do not want to empower.
Poulsen says he will not make Frederiksen prime minister
Lund Poulsen responded by sharply criticising Løkke. He said the Moderates had put personalities above policy and argued that a parliamentary majority should not have opposed the political platform developed by Venstre, Liberal Alliance and the Conservatives.
He also said he had tested other possibilities, including the much-discussed centre government. In his view, the Social Democrats were not willing to accept the economic framework he had put forward.
Lund Poulsen was clear that he did not want to help Mette Frederiksen remain prime minister. He argued that Denmark should not pursue what he called a red economic policy in a Folketing where he sees a blue reform majority.
The statement matters politically because it suggests that Venstre may now move into opposition if the process returns to Frederiksen. It also signals that the split between the Social Democrats and Venstre, after years of SVM cooperation, has become much harder to bridge.
A blue dead end, and a return to Frederiksen
The failure of the VLAK plan appears to close the most concrete centre-right route available to Lund Poulsen. Dansk Folkeparti had said it would not bring down the proposal, and several blue parties had reacted positively. But without the Moderates, the project could not credibly move to the King.
That leaves the government talks close to where they were before Lund Poulsen received the mandate, but not exactly unchanged. The blue option has now been tested and has failed. This may strengthen Løkke’s argument that Denmark needs either a centre-left arrangement involving the Moderates or a broader government across the centre.
It also makes Frederiksen the most likely figure to return as royal investigator, although that will depend on Saturday’s King’s Round. If she receives the mandate again, the likely track would be negotiations for a red-purple government involving the Social Democrats, SF, Radikale Venstre and the Moderates, with possible parliamentary support from Enhedslisten and Alternativet.
That model is still difficult. SF and the Moderates are far apart on several issues, and Løkke would return to the table after having tried to create an alternative. But compared with VLAK, it may now look like the only workable route left.
What happens now?
The immediate next step is the new King’s Round on Saturday. Each party will tell King Frederik who it believes should now lead the negotiations.
If the parties point back to Mette Frederiksen, she could resume the attempt to form a government, likely with the Moderates again in a decisive role. If another figure is proposed, Denmark could enter yet another exploratory phase.
