In recent days, quiet little Denmark has seen the release of the long-awaited Mink Commission report investigating whether the prime minister knowingly broke the law; the return of the Roskilde Festival, one of Europe’s largest musical events, after two years of Covid cancelations; the opening of the Tour de France in Copenhagen; a rare mass shooting that killed three people; and a strike by SAS pilots while the company, Denmark’s flagship carrier, filed for bankruptcy protection. We’ll stick with the first one for now.

Mink awaiting PM’s order. Photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

At 4,700 pages, the Mink Commission report (DK) had the ingredients for a heated debate. The main question was whether Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen knew that the destruction of Denmark’s mink industry, the largest in the world, was illegal when she gave the order to cull the entire mink population on November 4, 2020. The coronavirus had been discovered at certain mink farms, but many of the 15-17 million mink that were culled had been healthy. Mink farm owners were compensated for their losses, but thousands of people lost their jobs.

Frederiksen hadn’t known at the time, the Commission determined. But it found statements by the prime minister and Minister of the Environment and Food Mogens Jensen to be “grossly misleading” and the Prime Minister’s Office’s conduct during the episode “very reprehensible” (meget kritisabel) and Environment and Food Ministry’s “especially reprehensible.” The report says that Jensen was informed of the illegality on November 5 but stated that he hadn’t been until days later.

Slette Mette becomes an online game

The report added that several officials in the two departments deserved to be subject to disciplinary hearings, in particular the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Barbara Bertelsen, who advised Frederiksen to delete several text messages (DK) from her phone. After this leaked, Frederiksen was given the nickname Slette Mette in the media (slette means “to delete”), and her maneuvering was re-enacted in a mobile app of the same name. Bertelsen also advised Frederiksen that the case threatened the Social Democratic administration and that the Ministry of the Environment and Food should take the blame. Jensen resigned on November 18, 2020.

The report was not intended to reach legal conclusions. The main question after its release was whether Frederiksen should be subject to an independent legal investigation or impeachment hearings, and that was up to Parliament. At a press conference on the report, Frederiksen, reiterating her ignorance of the law, maintained that an investigation was unnecessary and expressed continuing confidence in her staff. None of them was fired or suspended.

Gross negligence

Two of the administration’s supporting parties did not wish to pursue any further deliberations. The Opposition called them hypocritical (DK) because last year the left wing insisted on impeachment hearings for Opposition MP Inger Støjberg under similar circumstances. It maintained that ministers have ultimate responsibility for their ministries’ actions and that Frederiksen should be investigated and tried for “gross negligence” even if she didn’t lie.

That left the Social Liberal party with the deciding votes. Although it had supported the administration throughout its tenure, it has a reputation for taking a principled stand on good government and the judicial process. It came up with an alternative ultimatum: It would not endorse an investigation, but if the administration did not call elections before Parliament’s annual opening on October 4, it would propose a vote of no confidence. According to law, Parliamentary elections must be held by June 2023.

No comment

The ministries involved in the scandal were given 30 days to prepare a response to the report, but they promptly decided not to respond at all. Parliament’s Review Committee, with a majority of the administration’s supporting parties, issued a næse, or formal reprimand (DK), to Frederiksen and Jensen for their handling of the episode. Frederiksen never acknowledged any culpability, and a spokesperson for the Social Democrats declared that the case was thus closed. Frederiksen then went to speak at a memorial service (DK) for the shooting victims at the Field’s shopping mall.