GOVERNMENT TRIALS

The new Danish minority government survived its first crisis yesterday. Each spring and summer, the government negotiates a deal with KL, the organisation that represents the country's 92 kommuner (local authorities) and 5 regions, on the amount of money available from central government to help fund their activities. On the basis of this deal, the local institutions prepare detailed budgets in the autumn that form the basis for what they do the following year. But before they do so, the deal has to be approved by the national Parliament's finance committee.

Being a right-of-centre minority government, this year's deal called for efficiency savings of 1% p.a. for the next 4 years. Since the four parties in the "blue" block have a (narrow) majority in Parliament - and so in the finance committee - the deal ought to have sailed through. However, when it came to the vote yesterday, the Conservatives balked, because the deal allowed the local authority land tax to rise.

The Conservatives had a dreadful election, and are close to extinction. Virtually the only distinctive policy they had was to freeze the land tax (a tax on the value of land alone, without buildings), on the grounds that it would give people financial security. Voting to implement a deal which drove a coach and horses through that promise would in their view have shredded what little credibility they still have. So they decided to vote against the deal in the finance committee.

End of government? No. The Government reached across the aisle and got support from the opposition Social Democrats and Radicals. So the local government deal was done.

Why did the opposition not take the opportunity to bring down the Government? The reasons are complicated, but demonstrate how things work in a decentralised society. First, to bring down the Government, you need a vote of confidence; in the event that such a vote was called, the election result (90-89 to the blue block) would come into play. Secondly, local authorities are a mixed bag of left-of-centre and right-of-centre organisations. If they (collectively) have done a deal with the government of the day, then it is an unwritten rule of Danish politics that that deal should be supported by the opposition, even if the deal includes things that they are against. Which is why the Social Democrats and Radicals have not only agreed to support this year's deal, but also any other deals that this government might make during its term.

In other words, the Conservatives may have saved their sacred cow, but at the expense of looking narrowly self-interested. While the Social Democrats and Radicals have ended up looking statesmanlike.

Walter Blotscher