Denmark adding 3 new ministers in government reshuffle

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Denmark's three-party centrist government said Wednesday it will create three new ministries, including a government office in charge of emergency preparedness.

The government wants a minister in charge of European Union affairs ahead of Denmark’s rotating EU presidency in the second half of 2025.

The shuffle means Denmark, like Sweden, will have a minister in charge of emergencies and preparedness for climate change or cyberattacks.

The third new minister will be in charge of carrying out and coordinating Denmark’s green policy.

“I hope this can inspire the rest of the world,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said of the new green policy ministry. The Scandinavian country has a goal of 70% emissions reductions by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2050.

Frederiksen did not give any names nor say whether any of the current government's 23 ministries would be made redundant. She said the changes will be announced Thursday when the new government is formally presented to King Frederik X.

Also Wednesday, Frederiksen named 49-year-old Dan Jørgensen as Denmark's candidate for the new commissioner to the European Union’s powerful executive arm which polices EU laws and negotiates trade on behalf of member countries.

Jørgensen who currently is Denmark’s climate minister and a former Social Democratic member of the European Parliament, needs to be vetted by the 720-member European assembly before he can take the EU job.

Frederiksen, 46, is the leader of the Social Democratic Party and has been Denmark’s prime minister since 2019.

In 2022 she presented the current majority government made up of her own center-left Social Democrats, the center-right Liberal Party and the newly created centrist Moderate party.