Helle Thorning-Schmidt

Helle Thorning-Schmidt (2011)

Helle Thorning-Schmidt [ ˈhɛlə ˈtoɐ̯neŋ ˈsmed ] (born December 14, 1966 in Rødovre ) is a Danish politician . Since April 12, 2005, she has been President of the Social Democrats and since October 3, 2011 Danish Prime Minister ; she was the first woman in both offices. On June 28, 2015, she resigned from both functions.

As opposition leader, Helle Thorning-Schmidt was defeated by Anders Fogh Rasmussen in the 2007 Folketing election , but prevailed in the 2011 Folketing election with her center-left alliance against the coalition of Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen . After losing the majority of their left alliance in the 2015 Folketing election , Lars Løkke Rasmussen was again prime minister.

Youth, Family and Education

Helle Thorning-Schmidt grew up in Ishøj, southwest of Copenhagen . When she was ten years old, her parents divorced; from then on she lived with her mother. In Ishøj grammar school she experienced her politicization in a “very red direction”, as she herself says.

In the 1980s she was involved in the peace movement , for the ANC , at the festivals of the DKP newspaper Land og Folk and in student politics .

She studied political science at the University of Copenhagen . She developed a particular interest in the European Union . To this day, she is convinced that the EU is the right tool to make Europe more socially and environmentally conscious.

Through her involvement with the European movement she came into contact with the Social Democrats and got to know the politician Ritt Bjerregaard , in whose “coffee club” she was accepted.

Helle Thorning-Schmidt completed her further training at the private and paid European College in Bruges , for which she received a scholarship from the Danish Foreign Ministry. There she met her future husband Stephen Kinnock, a son of the former leader of the British Labor Party, Neil Kinnock . She graduated from the College of Europe in 1993 with an MA in European Studies. In 1994 he completed an MA in political science at the University of Copenhagen .

After completing her studies, she was head of the secretariat of the Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament in Brussels from 1994 to 1997 . During this time she married Stephen Kinnock and had their first daughter.

In 1997 she returned to Denmark where she became an advisor to the Danish Trade Union Confederation ( Landsorganisation i Danmark ) on international affairs. She held this position until 1999 when she ran for the European Parliament. During the European election campaign in 1999 , she was pregnant with her second daughter.

The family of four lives in Østerbro , a district of Copenhagen.

Political career

Helle Thorning-Schmidt (2008)

Helle Thorning-Schmidt (2010)

European Parliament

In 1999 Helle Thorning-Schmidt was elected to the European Parliament for the Danish Social Democrats . During this fifth parliamentary term, Thorning-Schmidt was a member of the Group of the Party of European Socialists . She was a member of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee and the Constitutional Committee of the European Parliament. As a labor market politician, she was involved in B. against social dumping . She also became a co-founder of the European Council on Foreign Relations .

With the end of the electoral term, her mandate ended in summer 2004, after which she ran for the Danish Folketing election in 2005 .

Party leader

On February 8, 2005, Helle Thorning-Schmidt was elected to the Folketing . She won her first direct mandate for the Social Democrats in 25 years in her constituency. Nationwide, however, the party experienced one of the worst debacles in its history, as it only received 25.8% of the vote (29.1% in 2001).

On April 12, 2005, Helle Thorning-Schmidt replaced Mogens Lykketoft in the party chairmanship of the Danish Social Democrats, who had resigned on the evening of the 2005 election defeat. For the first time in history, the Social Democratic presidency election took place in the form of a ballot , in which Helle Thorning-Schmidt prevailed with 53.2% against Frank Jensen , who was assigned to the left wing of the party. Thorning-Schmidt, on the other hand, was seen as a representative of the right wing of the party.

Top candidate 2007

After a new election of the Folketing was proclaimed on October 25, 2007, Thorning-Schmidt stood as the top candidate of the opposition parties (social democrats, socialists , radical Venstre ) for the office of the Danish head of government. Despite an intense election campaign under the slogan “We choose prosperity”, your party again lost its share of the vote (now only 25.5%). In the absence of personnel alternatives for the party chairmanship, her office was not called into question.

In the opposition she repeatedly supported the government's foreign and foreign policy line, but clearly set herself apart from the government in terms of social policy by resolutely adhering to the Danish welfare state.

Prime Minister

Thorning-Schmidt during the 2013 World Economic Forum

For the election on September 15, 2011, the Social Democrats again nominated Thorning-Schmidt as the top candidate. Although the party achieved the worst result in its history with 24.8 percent of the vote, the center-left alliance led by Thorning-Schmidt grew overall. Queen Margrethe II therefore officially commissioned her to form a government on October 2, 2011. Thorning-Schmidt formed a three-party government with the social liberal radical Venstre and the Socialist People's Party . On October 3, Thorning-Schmidt was appointed Prime Minister and presented her cabinet . The Socialist People's Party left the coalition on January 30, 2014, and the Thorning-Schmidt II government was appointed on February 3, 2014. In the 2015 Folketing election , the Social Democrats led an election campaign that was heavily tailored to Thorning-Schmidt. The party was able to grow slightly, but the left party alliance lost the majority in parliament, so that Thorning-Schmidt's predecessor Lars Løkke Rasmussen was able to return to the State Chancellery.

Further career

Thorning-Schmidt during the 55th Munich Security Conference 2019

In autumn 2015, Thorning-Schmidt, who was known as Prime Minister for her strict asylum policy, was a candidate for the post of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , but was left behind against Filippo Grandi . In April 2016, she succeeded Jasmine Whitbread as Managing Director of Save the Children International .

Since May 2020 Thorning-Schmidt has been co-chair of the Facebook Oversight Board, which is an independent body to monitor the company's actions against hate speech and fake news.

Trivia

Because of her fashionable appearance, the tabloids liked to talk about “ Gucci- Helle”.

Publications

• Bjarke Larsen, Flemming Ytzen (ed.): En dollar om dagen - 17 essays om danskerne, globaliseringen og verdens fattige. Pressto, 2001.
• Tine Aurvig Brøndum, Morten Bødskov, Villy Dyhr, Lars Olsen, Helle Thorning-Schmidt: Forsvar for fællesskabet. Forlaget Fremad, 2002.
• Epostler (letters and conversations). Gyldendal, 2003.
• Charlotte Antonsen, Ole Buchardt Olesen (ed.): Europe’s værdier og rolle i verden. Peter la Cours Forlag, 2007.
• Matthias Platzeck , Peer Steinbrück , Frank-Walter Steinmeier (ed.): Up to date - social democracy and progress in the 21st century. 2007.

Web links

Commons : Helle Thorning-Schmidt  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official homepage (Danish)
• Official page as Prime Minister ( Memento of April 28, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (Danish, English)
• Entry on Helle Thorning-Schmidt in the Members' database of the European Parliament

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kurier : "Duel" in elections in Denmark ( Memento of December 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), November 5, 2005
2. ↑ Die Presse : Denmark: Red Bloc takes power , September 16, 2011.
3. ^ Thorning-Schmidt announces three-party government , Rheinische Post , October 2, 2011.
4. ↑ Kongelig resolution of October 3, 2011. (PDF; 27 kB) Statsministeriet, October 3, 2011, accessed on October 3, 2011 (Danish). 
5. ↑ Silke Bigalke: Finally agile again . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . February 1, 2014, ISSN  0174-4917 , p. 7 .
6. ↑ Dane takes a sharp line against asylum seekers ( memento of March 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Badische Zeitung , September 16, 2015, accessed on March 8, 2016.
7. ↑ Italian Grandi becomes the new UN refugee commissioner. Zeit , November 12, 2015, accessed March 8, 2016 . 
8. ^ Former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt appointed to lead Save the Children International. savethechildren.net, January 13, 2016, accessed March 8, 2016 . 
9. ↑ Lisa Hegemann: Oversight Board: Facebook's new guardians. In: Zeit Online. May 6, 2020, accessed May 17, 2020 . 
10. ↑ Gucci-Helle makes history . The press, October 3, 2011.