“Could Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen be the Next NATO Secretary General?”

For several months, work has been going on in the back rooms of NATO to find a suitable candidate to take over the post of Secretary General after Jens Stoltenberg.

One of the names that should have been on the block at one point is Mette Frederiksen, reported VG in April.

Denmark’s prime minister must be particularly well-liked by the US authorities, NATO’s largest member state, and has the necessary top-level political experience after having been Denmark’s head of government since 2019, the newspaper wrote.

– Not spending enough money

Next week, Mette Frederiksen will visit US President Joe Biden at the White House. There, the two will, among other things, discuss NATO cooperation and the upcoming NATO summit in July.

Danish TV 2 wrote last week that the visit fueled speculation about whether Frederiksen could be a candidate for the position of top manager.

The Danish Nato and defense expert Jeppe Trautner, lecturer at the Department of Politics and Society at Aalborg University, dismissed the speculation.

– Denmark does not spend enough money on defence. Denmark fails on 14 out of 17 strength targets we have agreed with Nato. And Denmark has a defense that has collapsed. That ends the saga of whether Mette Frederiksen can become secretary general, Trautner told Danish TV 2.

Then something happened in Denmark.

Reached Nato targets overnight

Out of the blue, the Danish government suddenly allocated a double-digit number of billions to a Ukraine fund the Folketing – the Danish parliament – decided to set up in March.

The money comes on top of the money that was allocated in March, and will total 14.5 billion Danish kroner this year. Next year, an additional 10.4 billion Danish kroner will be added to the fund.

– Ready to fight tonight

And suddenly, Denmark suddenly reached NATO’s goal that each country should spend two percent of its GDP on defense.

At least that is what the Danish government claims, wrote Danish TV 2 Monday.

– Can’t be Mette

But that does not change NATO and defense expert Jeppe Trautner’s assessments, he tells Dagbladet

– For various reasons, including the fact that the post of general secretary does not alternate between Norway and Denmark, it cannot be Mette, writes Trautner in an e-mail to Dagbladet.

New attacks: – Uncommon

The Danish expert calls the Danish government’s lightning allocation of money to its so-called Ukraine fund a “desperate attempt to raise Denmark’s defense budget from 1.38 percent of GDP to 2 percent of GDP before the NATO summit in Vilnius.

– It is highly unlikely that NATO will change its long-standing definition of “defense spending” to help Denmark camouflage that we are not contributing, Trautner writes further.

Then the expert delivers his rhetorical coup de grace:

– The only thing Denmark contributes to the buffet in Nato is our good appetite.

– Not an open discussion

During a press conference ahead of NATO’s informal meeting of foreign ministers in Oslo, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre were asked precisely about the Danish speculation.

Neither Stoltenberg nor Støre specifically wanted to comment on the rumors about Frederiksen’s future.

– There is no ongoing discussion openly about that question. There are good reasons for that, said Støre, who nevertheless praised his Danish colleague to the skies.

– I think Putin is furious

– I could have spent a long session talking well about Mette Frederiksen. She is one of Europe’s most talented prime ministers, one of the people I know best and have the closest contact with. I have only good things to say about her, but we will take the discussions about NATO’s way forward internally within NATO, added the Prime Minister.

PS! Before Jens Stoltenberg was appointed NATO’s Secretary General in 2014, it was the Danish Anders Fogh-Rasmussen who held the position for five years. This is precisely why several Danish experts are dismissive of Frederiksen’s candidacy.

– It will be like winning the European Championship in football every three years, says the political analyst Michael Kristiansen Danish TV 2.