Helle Thorning-Schmidt (Danish:[ˈheləˈtsʰoɐ̯ne̝ŋˈsme̝t]; born 14 December 1966)[1] is a Danish retired politician who served as the26thPrime Minister of Denmark from 2011 to 2015, and Leader of theSocial Democrats from 2005 to 2015. She is the first woman to have held each post. Followingdefeat in 2015, she announced that she would step down as both Danish Prime Minister and Social Democratic party leader. Ending her political career in April 2016, she was the chief executive of theNGOSave the Children until June 2019.[2]
Helle Thorning-Schmidt was born inRødovre to Holger Thorning-Schmidt, a lecturer in mathematics and national economics at theUniversity of Copenhagen, and his wife Grete. Her father waspolitically conservative[3] and she grew up in theCopenhagen suburb ofIshøj. She attendedIshøj Gymnasium from which she graduated in 1985. Her parents divorced when she was 10 years old.[4]
Thorning-Schmidt in 2008, as leader of the opposition
Following the defeat in the2005 election, in which theSocial Democrats lost five seats and failed to regain the majority it had lost in the2001 election, formerMinister of Finance and party leaderMogens Lykketoft resigned his post, taking responsibility for the poor election results. In his speech of resignation on election night, 8 February 2005, he called for a leadership election in order to determine who should lead the party into the next election.[11]
Thorning-Schmidt campaigned for the party leadership as a moderate candidate and was elected by the party members on 12 April 2005, ahead of the other candidate,Frank Jensen. She led theSocial Democrats in the 2007 election, in which her party suffered modest losses and was forced into a third term in opposition. The party was also unable to regain its position as the largest party in theFolketing.[12]
She was against holding a referendum on theEuropean Reform Treaty.[13] During her2007 campaign she promised to relax restrictions on asylum seekers and immigrants.[14] She also opposed tax cuts announced byAnders Fogh Rasmussen, instead stating she would like to see more funding for welfare. The party also campaigned on a platform of combating increased inequalities in society, and fighting global warming by supplying 45% of Denmark's energy from renewable sources by 2025.[15]
Although her party again lost two seats in the 2007 election reducing the total to 45 seats, her leadership was not questioned by her party.[16] In June 2008, according to aGallup poll, the opposition centre-left was at 49.8% compared to 49.6% for the centre-right. This would leave the centre-left with 88 seats, two short of a majority, discounting theFaroe Island andGreenland seats.[17] Since late 2009 the opposition enjoyed large majorities in the polls, and according to polls carried out in January 2011 the opposition led the governing coalition underLars Løkke Rasmussen by 5–7 points and theSocial Democrats ledVenstre by 7–10 points which would make theSocial Democrats the largest party by far in theFolketing.[18]
In the2011 parliamentary election, she was re-elected to parliament. Although the rulingLiberal Party became the largest party and gained a seat and the Social Democrats lost a seat, the opposition parties combined obtained more seats than the government coalition. Her four-party bloc gained a majority of 89 seats in the 179-seat parliament against 86 for the sitting prime minister and his center-right parliamentary supporters. Prime MinisterLars Løkke Rasmussen formally tendered his resignation to Queen Margrethe on 16 September 2011. Rasmussen's cabinet remained in office as acaretaker government[23] until 3 October, when Helle Thorning-Schmidt was appointed prime minister by the Queen following negotiations with the other opposition parties.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt officially began her first term as prime minister on 3 October 2011, after having presented her cabinet to the Queen and having received her official appointment.[24] Thorning-Schmidt pursued acentrist compromise agenda, building several reforms with support from both sides of the Folketing. This caused friction with the supporting Red-Green Alliance, which was kept outside of influence.[25]
Thorning-Schmidt in 2011
Thorning-Schmidt presided over the successful conclusion ofNATO'sstrike missions inLibya, to which Denmark was a contributor, less than three weeks after taking office.[26]
Thorning-Schmidt meets with U.S. PresidentBarack Obama in Washington, D.C., 24 February 2012
During the first year in office her government rolled back anti-immigration legislation enacted by the previous government,[27] and passed a tax reform with support from the liberal-conservative opposition.[28] The tax reform raised the top tax threshold, effectively lowering tax rates for high income earners.[29] The aim of the tax reform was to increase labour output to fend off a projected shortage within the next decades. The stated goal was to entice Danes to work more in order to compensate for the decreasing workforce, by lowering tax on wages and gradually lowering welfare payments to those outside of the labour market to increase the economic benefit of working relative to receiving welfare.[30] Despite effectively lowering tax rates on high income earners, tax revenue continued to increase from 831,172 million Krone in 2011, to 901,001 million Krone in 2013, and eventually reached 954,473 million Krone in 2015 by the end of her time in office.[31] These effective reductions were in line with the 2009 tax reforms ofAnders Fogh Rasmussen, aVenstre prime minister preceding her, which is likely why she received liberal-conservative support.[28]
On 9 August and 12 December 2013, amid tensions between coalition partners, Thorning-Schmidt madecabinet reshuffles.
Thorning-Schmidt with heads of government from theNordic countries
On 30 January 2014, the Socialist People's Party announced their departure from Thorning-Schmidt's government due to a conflict over the proposed sale ofDONG Energy shares toGoldman Sachs. Before departure, they also announced they will support Thorning-Schmidt although not being a part of her government.[32]
Thorning-Schmidt led her party into the2015 general election in which her party increased its share of votes and seats. However, the Social Liberals lost nine seats, leaving the left bloc without enough support to remain in office. Within an hour of the results being declared, she announced her resignation as both prime minister and leader of the Social Democrats.
Having lost the Danish general election of 2015, Thorning-Schmidt stepped down as prime minister and as leader of the Social Democratic Party. It was announced that she would become her party's member of the Presidium of the Folketing, and she served as the Presidium's 1st Vice-President. On 4 September 2015, Prime MinisterLars Løkke Rasmussen announced that the Danish government had nominated Thorning-Schmidt as Denmark's official candidate to the position as newUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.[34]
After her retirement from Danish politics, Thorning-Schmidt served as the CEO ofSave the Children from 2016 until 2019.[2]
In May 2020, Thorning-Schmidt joined theFacebook Oversight Group, established as an independent entity withinFacebook, Inc. She was appointed as a full board member (one of twenty) who as a board have initially adjudicated on deleted Facebook posts in 2021.[37][38]
In August 2010, theDanish tax authorities (SKAT) investigated reports that Thorning-Schmidt's husband, Stephen Kinnock, was guilty oftax evasion. Kinnock had declared that he was not a resident of Denmark and thus not subject to Danish taxes, while at the same time Thorning-Schmidt had declared, in an application for dispensation for Kinnock to own property in Denmark, that he resided in Denmark "every weekend of the year from Friday through to Monday".[66] Thorning-Schmidt attributed the discrepancy to a "big and sloppy error".[66] On 16 September 2010, Danish tax authorities acquitted the couple and the charges of tax evasion were dropped.[67]
A week before 15 September 2011 elections to the Danish Parliament, the 2010 decision from SKAT (the taxation department) surfaced in the Danish tabloidB.T. The case had been leaked to the newspaper several months previously. It turned out that from 2000 to 2008 Thorning-Schmidt had made use of tax deductions applicable to her husband, even though he was not subject to Danish taxes and had no income in Denmark. The mistake was corrected by SKAT for the three years from 2006 to 2008, and Thorning-Schmidt paid the amount she had saved due to the error. She was however not required to pay the amounts saved for the six years from 2000 to 2005, because of thestatutory time limit for liability in such cases.[68]
In November 2011, the dailyPolitiken disclosed that theTax Ministry deputy chief Peter Loft had attended several meetings attending to the Thorning-Schmidt case and had tried to insert comments into the final resolution text. This would be unlawful under Danish law as the Tax Ministry may not interfere with the decisions taken in individual tax cases.[69] This set off a flurry of speculation in the press, as to whether there had been any political pressure from the then government to pursue a stricter course in the tax case. The Tax Minister in the new government, Thor Möger Pedersen, subsequently asked Peter Loft and the director of the revenue service's Copenhagen branch, Erling Andersen, to give a report on the happenings. On 2 December, Pedersen disclosed that he had found such big discrepancies in the two reports that he would set up a commission of inquiry to determine the actual course of events.[70]
Further controversy erupted when two days later the tabloid daily,Ekstra Bladet, reported that they had also been offered the confidential information that was made public during the election campaign. The source of the leak was determined to be Peter Arnfeldt, spin doctor for then Minister for TaxationTroels Lund Poulsen.[71] This led to intense media speculation that the former government, and specifically Troels Lund Poulsen, were engaged in leaking confidential tax information and trying to pressure the revenue service into changing its decision in the case, in an active attempt to discredit the opposition leader in the then imminent election. This would constitute a hitherto unseen level of abuse of power in Danish political life. The commission of inquiry that had already been announced two days previously, was broadly supported by the Danish Parliament to also look into whether the former government was involved in, or knew of, the leak.[72] On the same day, Troels Lund Poulsen announced he would be taking an indefinite leave of absence from the Danish Parliament. Peter Arnfeldt has been reported to the police by the Ministry for Taxation. In March 2012, Peter Loft was suspended from his post as deputy chief, for the duration of the two-year investigation period.[73]
In December 2013, Thorning-Schmidt, British prime ministerDavid Cameron and US presidentBarack Obama faced criticism on social media that they had behaved inappropriately after posing for a "selfie" taken with Thorning-Schmidt's mobile phone duringthe memorial service for the former South African PresidentNelson Mandela.[74][75] Defending her actions, Thorning-Schmidt said, "There were lots of pictures taken that day, and I just thought it was a bit fun. Maybe it also shows that when we meet heads of state and government, we too are just people who have fun."[75] Cameron said he was being polite when Thorning-Schmidt asked him to take part in the picture. On a previous occasion, Thorning-Schmidt had stopped her car to ask for a picture with the actressSarah Jessica Parker after spotting her signing autographs in Oslo.[76]
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