IT'S ALL ABOUT BATHS

The current Danish Government is a three-party left-of-centre coalition, reliant for its Parliamentary majority on the support of the very left-wing Enhedslisten. However, that support has been less and less forthcoming in the course of the Government's two-year life, mainly because Enhedslisten thinks (rightly, in my view) that the Government has been ignoring it.

One area of politics where Danish minority Governments always face pressure is on the Budget. If a Budget is not passed, then it automatically leads to a vote of confidence; which, if lost, results in a fresh general election. So, for the past two months, the Social Democratic Finance Minister has been having endless discussions with Enhedslisten about what should be in the 2014 Budget. Those discussions have intensified in the past week because of the combination of a deadline for getting the bill ready and the results of last week's local elections. Enhedslisten had a good local election, and wanted to use that result as a springboard for putting their fingerprints all over the Budget.

In the end, it all came down (somewhat surrealistically) to a discussion about baths; should the elderly in an old people's home have the right to have a bath or a shower at least twice a week enshrined in law or not? The Government said no; matters to do with the elderly fall to local authorities, and although the Government was prepared to provide more money for the elderly in the form of block grants, it was not prepared to tell an individual local authority precisely how that money should be spent. Enhedslisten, on the other hand, wanted the right enshrined in law, not least because promises to give money to particular local authority areas have not always resulted in money being spent in these areas. It may seem bizarre that the Budget for a whole country should hang by such a thin thread; but hang it did, and there was no agreement when talks between the two sides broke up earlier today.

Enhedslisten does not have to present a Budget, but the Finance Minister does. So it was not so surprising that less than six hours later, he had stitched up a Budget deal with the right-wing opposition. The extra money for the elderly was still on the table, but he had to swallow some tax cuts and other goodies in order to get it through.

Why did the opposition agree to pass a Budget, why didn't they go for a vote of confidence instead? The judgement is almost certainly the one that if they had done that, then the Government and Enhedslisten would have made up and supported each other. Better to let the mistrust between the Government and its nominal support turn more and more bitter. The next general election is less than two years away, and the opposition can afford to wait.

Walter Blotscher