Pragmatist rules a troubled Denmark

Press, 26 November 1977, Page 14

Pragmatist rules a troubled Denmark

By

JOHN PALMER

in the “Guardian'’

“If Anker Jorgensen shaved his moustache and beard he still would not look much like Jim Callaghan. But, by golly, how he sounds like him these days.” The Danish civil servant was not being satirical nor wanting to damn with faint Praise. He was merely noting how the mantle of “statesmanshio” has settled around the Danish Labour Prime Minister’s shoulders. The parallels between Mr Jorgensen and Mr Callaghan are striking. Both preside over minority administrations. Mr Jorgensen depends on the support in Parliament of a variety of political parties most of whom could be described as liberal. He has pinched many of their policies. In so doing he had upset his Social Democratic Party Left Wing. Both men have learned how to preside over nationaal economic crises with an Olympian air of detachment, developing in the process the image of national father figures. Mr Callaghan, it is true, brushes a broader political canvas because of Britain’s international involvements, not least in Southern Africa. But at the end of next month Mr Jorgensen can expect to play an enhanced international role when Denmark assumes the Presidency of the Common Market. There are striking similarities also in the British and Danish social climates. True, Denmark’s economic lot seems erimmer these days than Britain’s. The Dane- cannot look to North Sea oil as even a temporary saviour although they do hope off-shore natural gas will provide help by the end of the next decade. Denmark still has a massive balance of payments deficit and a currency' which

lurches from one devaluation crisis to another. But when it comes to the “real” economy — jobs, production, prices and living standards — both countries present an equally dismal picture. Inflation has been the overriding concern of the minority Government formed by Mr Jorgensen after the General Election last February. Like the Labour Government in Britain, Mr Jorgensen has relied on wage curbs and public -pending cuts to reduce inflation, The Danish wage freeze might even be regarded as generous, by British unions. It offers a 2 per cent rise in wages on top of automatic compensation for rising prices. For some lower-paid workers this has meant wage increases of around 14 per cent but the cost of living cover applies to only half the items in the cost of living index and is paid retrospectively. The policy of austerity has not endeared the Government to the Danish unions and the Social Democratic Party Left wing. But Mr Jorgensen w’as careful to secure his parliamentary position by forming a pact first with the liberal parties and then with the conservatives. In fact, as Mr Jorgensen admitted gleefully to me in an interview this month — “we adopted many of our opponents’ economic policies.” These included a hefty increase in VAT — originally opposed by the Social Democrats. And the Government further upset its Left-wing when it had to drop a tax on land speculators. To judge by the opinion polls, none of this has done Mr Jorgensen any harm with the voters. His party has actually increased support beyond the record 37 per cent

of votes won last February. It has been the Government’s liberal allies who have lost ground. The conservatives and, even more, the ultra Ring-wing Populist “no tax” Party led by Mr Mogens Glistrup have won support. To the Left of the Government's Party the Tribunite People’s Socialist Party has faded, but the Left Socialists, who are closer in

outlook to the British far Left groups, have increased their support In spite of this the prevailing current in Danish public life has been to the

Right “We have all had to learn to live with the conservative backlash which has permeated the welfare state and most aspects, of society in recent years,” is the way one radical journalist put it.

Mr Jorgensen’s success in holding the wages line will not have escaped Mr Callaghan. There have been some bitter strikes but trade union militants have been demoralised by the generally hostile reaction of "public opinion.” This could change quickly if Mr Jorgensen is forced to concede yet another devalua-

tion of the kroner, and prices continue in double figures. Both Mr Jorgensen and Mr Callaghan have displayed similar skills in handling critics at the annual party conference. This year Mr Jorgensen faces a revolt at the conference over membership of the Common Market. In a move which evokes comparison with the Callaghan letter on E.E.C. policy to the Labour national executive, Mr Jorgensen avoided trouble by agreeing to a committee to assess the advantages and disadvantages of Common Market membership. Mr Jorgensen is aided by the fact that the anti-Mar-keteers are uncertain where they are going. “We are suffering a crisis of identity,” says Mr Jens Maigaard, leader of the antiMarket People’s Socialist Party. He admits that antiMarketeers have been confused by the evidence that the E.E.C. is moving away from, not closer to, a Federal States. Mr Maigaard believes that the Community could even crack up under the twin strains of the economic crisis and the eventual membership of Greece, Spain, and Portugal. “I have come to the conclusion we should be inside the Community offering constructive alternatives,” he says.

The British Government is not likely to find serious fault with the way the Danes run the Common Market during their Presidency. Neither Mr Jorgensen nor Mr Callaghan are devotees of -European union. Both are cautious pragmatists. There will be frictions — for instance, over fishing and agriculture. But British Ministers will find much that is welcome and familiar in the way the Danish Social Democrats run the E.E.C. as they do in the way they run their own country.