VZCZCXYZ0001
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHCP #0539/01 3340756
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 300756Z NOV 09
FM AMEMBASSY COPENHAGEN
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5347

UNCLAS COPENHAGEN 000539 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/NB 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV ECON DA
SUBJECT: LOEKKE HAS A DREAM:  PRIME MINISTER'S TEN GOALS 
FOR DENMARK IN 2020 
 
(U) SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED; PROTECT ACCORDINGLY.  NOT FOR 
INTERNET DISTRIBUTION. 
 
¶1. (SBU)  SUMMARY:  Prime Minister Rasmussen used his party's 
annual conference to propose ten specific goals for Denmark 
to attain by 2020.  He called this his "Danish dream" - 
modelled explicitly on The American Dream and inspired by the 
life-story of President Obama.  With this vision statement, 
Lars Loekke Rasmussen bids to take a major step out from the 
shadow of his predecessor, without repudiating his work. 
While his own party and its coalition partner the 
Conservatives reacted positively, others expressed skepticism 
as to ways and means of achieving these goals, fearing it 
would be at the expense of existing entitlements.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  The leading governing party Venstre held its 
annual conference November 21-22 in Odense - its first since 
Lars Loekke Rasmussen took over as Prime Minister from Anders 
Fogh Rasmussen, who left in April to become Secretary General 
of NATO.  Attendance was down for a variety of reasons: 
fatigue after the local-election campaign, disappointment at 
the mixed results, lack of clarity about the program due to 
the leadership's focus on the upcoming COP-15 climate 
conference, and even the flu.  Loekke nonetheless used the 
occasion to articulate a set of ten goals for Denmark to 
attain by 2020 (see paragraph 3 below).  He explicitly cited 
The American Dream and the life-story of President Obama as 
his inspiration.  In articulating this vision, Loekke was 
taking a big step out from his predecessor's shadow, without 
repudiating the legacy of the man who dominated Danish 
politics this decade - and who was present at the party 
conference.  Initial reaction within Venstre and its 
coalition partner the Conservative People's Party was 
positive, while the opposition dismissed the proposal as "hot 
air" in the absence of a strategy for attaining the goals. 
The Danish People's Party, which provides indispensable 
support to the ruling coalition from outside government, said 
it would wait and see what concrete initiatives the PM comes 
up with; meanwhile, it laid down a marker that striving for 
these goals should not come at the expense of existing 
entitlement programs. 
 
¶3.  (U)  The PM's goals are as follows: 
 
- Be one of the world's top ten countries in per capita GDP 
(currently 11th); 
 
- Be among the world's top three entrepreneurial countries; 
 
- Be among the world's top ten in labor-market participation 
rate (currently 14th); 
 
- Be among the world's top five countries in student 
performance in reading, math and science, measured against 
PISA standards, and in English, measured against other 
non-English-speaking countries; 
 
- Have at least one university among Europe's top ten, as 
rated in the annual Times Higher Education report; 
 
- Be among the top ten countries in the world in median life 
expectancy; 
 
- Be among the world's top three most energy-efficient 
countries, and among the top three in percentage increase in 
use of renewable energy; 
 
- Among the best EU countries at integrating non-Western 
immigrants and their families into the labor market, measured 
in terms of rate of employment (currently 57 percent); 
 
- Be among the lowest countries in Europe in terms of 
probability of experiencing a crime; 
 
- Continue to have one of the five strongest economies as 
measured in terms of unemployment rate, public deficit, 
inflation, inflation stability, and balance of payments 
deficit. 
 
¶4.  (U)  What Denmark would need to do to attain these goals 
remains to be spelled out.  Professor Torben M. Andersen, 
former head of the "wise men" of the economy, said achieving 
the PM's goals would require far-reaching reform of the 
early-retirement, unemployment-insurance and 
incapacity-pension schemes. 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  Besides Loekke's "Danish dream," the highlight of 
the conference was a live video teleconference with a Danish 
soldier in Helmand, Afghanistan, who described the progress 
 
he and his comrades have seen and contributed to.  The party 
conferees gave the soldier two standing ovations.   NATO 
SecGen Anders Fogh Rasmussen was on hand at the Venstre 
conference calling for NATO allies to bear their share of the 
burden.  PM Lars Loekke Rasmussen ruled out setting a date 
for exiting Afghanistan, but expressed hope that Danish 
troops would soon be able to shift focus from combat to 
training and reconstruction. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Contributing to the less-than-festive atmosphere at 
the Venstre conference was the widespread expectation that 
the PM was about to name Climate and Energy Minister Connie 
Hedegaard of the Conservatives as Denmark's next EU 
Commissioner, and that he was simply waiting until after the 
conference to make the announcement.  Typically, the EU 
Commissioner would be expected to come from Venstre, as it is 
by far the larger party in the ruling coalition.  The 
decision is entirely the Prime Minister's to make.  The most 
talked-about possibility from within Venstre, Education 
Minister Bertel Haarder, told Poloff he was "ready and 
willing" in case he got the call.  (NOTE:  Two days after the 
conference, Hedegaard got the job.) 
FULTON