page_title: Politics of Denmark
section_title: Foreign policy
hierarchical_section_title: Politics of Denmark / Domestic and foreign relations / Foreign policy
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Пресс-конференция по итогам российско-датских переговоров. С Премьер-министром Дании Ларсом Расмуссеном. English: News conference following Russian-Danish talks. With Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen.
context_page_description: The politics of Denmark take place within the framework of a parliamentary representative democracy, a constitutional monarchy and a decentralised unitary state in which the monarch of Denmark, Queen Margrethe II, is the head of state. Denmark is described as a nation state. Danish politics and governance are characterized by a common striving for broad consensus on important issues, within both the political community and society as a whole.
  Executive power is exercised by the cabinet of Denmark, presided over by the Prime Minister who is first among equals. Legislative power is vested in both the executive and the national parliament. Members of the judiciary are nominated by the executive, formally appointed by the monarch and employed until retirement.
  Denmark has a multi-party system, with two large parties, and several other small but significant parties. No single party has held an absolute majority in the Folketing since the beginning of the 20th century. Thirteen parties have ballot access for the 2019 Danish general election, three of which did not contest 2015 general election.
context_section_description: The foreign policy of Denmark is based on its identity as a sovereign nation in Europe. As such its primary foreign policy focus is on its relations with other nations as a sovereign independent nation. Denmark has long had good relations with other nations.
  It has been involved in coordinating Western assistance to the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). The country is a strong supporter of international peacekeeping. Danish forces were heavily engaged in the former Yugoslavia in the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR), with IFOR, and now SFOR. Denmark also strongly supported American operations in Afghanistan and has contributed both monetarily and materially to the ISAF. These initiatives are a part of the "active foreign policy" of Denmark. Instead of the traditional adaptative foreign policy of the small country, Denmark is today pursuing an active foreign policy, where human rights, democracy and other crucial values is to be defended actively. In recent years, Greenland and the Faroe Islands have been guaranteed a say in foreign policy issues, such as fishing, whaling and geopolitical concerns.
  Following World War II, Denmark ended its two-hundred-year-long policy of neutrality. Denmark has been a member of NATO since its founding in 1949, and membership in NATO remains highly popular. There were several serious confrontations between the U.S. and Denmark on security policy in the so-called "footnote era" (1982–88), when an alternative parliamentary majority forced the government to adopt specific national positions on nuclear and arms control issues. The alternative majority in these issues was because the Social liberal Party (Radikale Venstre) supported the governing majority in economic policy issues, but was against certain NATO policies and voted with the left in these issues. The conservative led Centre-right government accepted this variety of "minority parliamentarism", that is, without making it a question of the government's parliamentary survival.
  With the end of the Cold War, however, Denmark has been supportive of U.S. policy objectives in the Alliance.
  Danes have enjoyed a reputation as "reluctant" Europeans. When they rejected ratification of the Maastricht Treaty on 2 June 1992, they put the EC's plans for the European Union on hold. In December 1992, the rest of the EC agreed to exempt Denmark from certain aspects of the European Union, including a common defense, a common currency, EU citizenship, and certain aspects of legal cooperation. The Amsterdam Treaty was approved in the referendum of 28 May 1998. In the autumn of 2000, Danish citizens rejected membership of the Euro currency group in a referendum. The Lisbon treaty was ratified by the Danish parliament alone. It was not considered a surrendering of national sovereignty, which would have implied the holding of a referendum according to article 20 of the constitution.
caption: Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and former Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen hold a joint press conference, April 2010.
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