Løkke after commenting on Nato rumours: “These are hypothetical questions. It’s not me who opens for them’

Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen (M) refuses to answer whether new elections will be held if Mette Frederiksen becomes Secretary General of NATO.

It is a hypothetical question, says Løkke after a meeting of the NATO countries’ foreign ministers in Oslo on Thursday.

In connection with the meeting, Lars Løkke Rasmussen gave an interview to TV 2, where the Moderate party leader stated that it will raise a number of questions for the government if Mette Frederiksen leaves the post.

Not least because the special government project between the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the Moderates is ‘largely’ person-driven.

If the person at the head of the project disappears, can you support a new social democratic prime minister, or should we have a new election?

“I don’t want to stand here and speculate about that at all. I gave an interview and I gave the answer I gave, and then there is no basis to say more about it”.

“I am not aware of anyone running for special posts at all. If that situation arises, we must discuss it”, says Lars Løkke Ramussen

But you yourself open the discussion by saying it will raise many questions. One of the questions that many voters would probably like an answer to is whether we will have new elections or a new social democratic prime minister, if Mette Frederiksen were to disappear to NATO, for example?

“These are hypothetical questions. I’m not the one opening for them. It is you journalists who ask, and then I give the answer I can give’.

But you have given an answer which could indicate that there is something going on. You also hear that at the NATO meeting. Norway’s Prime Minister calls her, among other things, one of Europe’s most talented prime ministers. Don’t you agree that this discussion is now going to continue?

“No. The journalists have a responsibility for the questions they ask me. And I try to make an effort to answer them. I also agree with the Norwegian Prime Minister that we have a very, very capable Danish Prime Minister”, says Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

The custom is ‘no comments’

Løkke’s interview for TV 2 has caused a stir. Not least because the custom is to say ‘no comments’ to questions about whether a Danish prime minister is running for a top international post.

For TV 2, however, Løkke enters the discussion. When asked what he himself would do in Mette Frederiksen’s situation, Løkke says:

“I wanted to think about it. Because we had elections only half a year ago. And we have started a completely new political project in Denmark, which is also largely personal in the sense that it rests on the fact that I myself founded a new party with the raison d’etre that we had to create a new construction in Danish politics, and that Mette Frederiksen, when the election was called, put her own person into it.

“It’s just started. So, that, I think, raises a lot of questions. It’s not someone I have to answer to,” says Lars Løkke Rasmussen to TV 2.

Mette Frederiksen has repeatedly denied that she is a candidate for the post of replacement for Jens Stoltenberg. Several media have written that her name is on the table among the 31 NATO countries.

Stoltenberg has previously announced that he will step down when his current term expires in October.

Names other than Mette Frederiksens are also in play for the post. Among others, the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, have been mentioned as bids for the eventual first female Secretary General of NATO.