Socialdemokratiet
The Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterne), is a Danish political party. In the 2001 parliamentary elections it was the second largest party, with 29.1% of the votes and 52 seats, performing very poorly compared to previous results. It is currently led by Mogens Lykketoft. It is a member of the Party of European Socialists and the Socialist International. In the European Parliament it has two MEPs.
Recent history
After the loss of power to the Liberal-Conservative govenment which replaced it after the November 2001 elections, the party chairman has been Mogens Lykketoft, who held the post of Minister of Finance for several years during Poul Nyrup Rasmussen's (the earlier Prime Minister and chairman of the Social Democrats) ministry.
The Social Democratic policy through the 1990's and continuing in the 21st century has been one of a significant redistribution of income, the maintenance of a large state apparatus, with collectively financed core services, such as medicare, education and infrastructure. The SD's have kept their parlimentary majority over the last decade by virtue of the support of Socialist People's Party and the Unity List (da: Enhedslisten), both parties which are considered significantly left-wing.
When the SD's rose to power in 1993, it inhereted a nation with high unemployment, following the previous government's tough economic reforms. Over the next 8 years, the unemployment problem was somewhat ameliorated, although this was primarily due to changed statistical methodology (people on leave were no longer considered unemployed).
The SD's raised taxes on low incomes (by enacting the Gross Income Tax, da: Bruttoskat / AMBI, of 8% of all income), which is contrary to their profile of being a party that claims to support those less well off economically.
As the 90's neared their end, another problem arose - the SD's had squandered the trade surplus due to their lax economic policies. The result was that the trade surplus of some 30 billion DKr/yr that the previous government had worked up, turned into negative figures in 1999. To combat this, the SD's increased taxes harshly, to limit private consumption. It worked, but the initiative (called "Pinsepakken of 1999") especially hit owners of private estate hard, with some home-owning families seeing their living expenses increase by as much as 60000 DKr/yr.
At the turn of the millennium, and as the election neared, the SD's could look back on 8 years of political rule, where an international high-growth period had been wasted with high taxes and increased public spending; during the Nyrup years, the danish public sector grew by 150 billion DKr.
See also
See also
