Holger Kirkholm Nielsen,known as Holger K. Nielsen (born 23 April 1950),is a Danish politician,member of the Folketing for the Socialist People's Party. He was Denmark's Minister for Foreign Affairs for 49 days from December 2013 through January 2014. He was the leader of the Socialist People's Party from 1991 to 2005 and served as the Minister for Taxation from 2012 to 2013.
He was elected to the Danish Parliament in 1987.[2] He became leader of the Socialist People's Party in 1991[2] at a time when the party was going through some major ideological soul-searching following the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe. The opposing candidate for the party leadership was Steen Gade,[2] a self-styled moderniser intent on reforming the party in ways which the majority found too radical. Holger K. Nielsen was considered a 'safer' choice in the eyes of the party's old guard, and thus assumed the leadership allied to the more leftist elements in his party.
Among the policies that had to be addressed was the party's approach to European integration. Having opposed membership of the EC (EU) in 1972, and then campaigned against ratification of the Single European Act in 1986, the party had by the late 1980s grudgingly reconciled itself to Danish membership, dropping the demand for withdrawal in 1990. However, when the Maastricht Treaty came up for approval by referendum in 1992, the party remained true to its roots and recommended a 'NO' vote. Holger K. Nielsen became one of the leaders in this campaign,[2] and was later judged to have swung far more than his own socialist voters towards the NO-side, which to great surprise emerged victorious by a wafer-thin margin. The following year, however, he reversed that position, recommending acceptance of the Maastricht Treaty, supplemented with the four Danish opt-outs. This decision came close to tearing the party apart, with some 60% of its voters remaining opposed, but this time the yes-side prevailed.
During the years of the Poul Nyrup Rasmussen governments (1993–2001), Holger K. Nielsen managed to take the Socialist People's Party closer to the mainstream of Danish politics, positioning the party as a slightly more leftist alternative to the ruling Social Democrats. During this time the party entered into several major compromises with the government in many policy areas, including several state finance bills. However close the socialists moved to the government, though, they never quite became acceptable as coalition partners, much to the chagrin of Holger K. Nielsen. A real popular breakthrough also never materialised, despite the leader's high media profile. The party lost seats in both the 1994 and 2001 elections, only managing to hold on in the 1998 election.
The party was successful in shoring up the centre-left governments of the 1990s. The party remained in the sceptic camp during the 1998 referendum campaign for the Amsterdam Treaty, a move which prompted several prominent pro-Europeans, such as Steen Gade and Christine Antorini, to leave politics. Again in 2000, when the issue was Denmark entering the Economic and Monetary Union, the Socialists were in the forefront of the successful NO-campaign, with Holger K. Nielsen taking a prominent lead. However later that same year, riding high in the opinion polls, Holger K. Nielsen performed a spectacular U-turn and made his party endorse the Nice Treaty, thus making a referendum avoidable. This was the opening shot in a campaign to turn the formerly EU-sceptic party into pro-Europeans, a process that culminated in late 2004, with the party's rank-and-file following Holger K. Nielsen's advice, and endorsing a pro-ratification stance towards the EU's Draft Constitution.[citation needed]
Nielsen is in his second marriage and has four children, two from each of the marriages.[1]
Related Research Articles
The Green Left is a democratic socialist political party in Denmark.
Richard Graham Corbett CBE is a former British politician who served as the final Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP), from 2017 to 2020.
The People's Movement against the EU is a far-left political association in Denmark against the European Union. It was founded in 1972 as a cross-party campaign platform for a 'no' vote in Denmark's referendum on EEC membership. The People's Movement was represented in the European Parliament from 1979 until 2019, when it lost its single seat in the European Parliament election.
The Danish Social Liberal Party is a social-liberal political party in Denmark. The party was founded as a split from the Venstre Reform Party in 1905.
There are three types of elections in Denmark: elections to the national parliament, local elections, and elections to the European Parliament. Referendums may also be called to consult the Danish citizens directly on an issue of national concern.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt is a Danish retired politician who served as the 26th Prime Minister of Denmark from 2011 to 2015, and Leader of the Social Democrats from 2005 to 2015. She is the first woman to have held each post. Following defeat in 2015, she announced that she would step down as both Danish Prime Minister and Social Democratic party leader. Ending her political career in April 2016, she was the chief executive of the NGO Save the Children until June 2019.
A referendum on joining the Eurozone was held in Denmark on 28 September 2000. It was rejected by 53.2% of voters with a turnout of 87.6%.
General elections were held in Denmark on 15 September 2011 to elect the 179 members of the Folketing. Of those 179, 175 members were elected in Denmark, two in the Faroe Islands and two in Greenland.
Denmark holds opt-outs from European Union policies in relation to police and justice and the adoption of the euro. They were secured under the Edinburgh Agreement in 1992 after a referendum for the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty was rejected by Danish voters, as a package of measures to assuage concerns raised during that referendum.
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, King Frederik X, is the head of state. Denmark is 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.
General elections were held in the Kingdom of Denmark on 18 June 2015 to elect the 179 members of the Folketing. 175 members were elected in the Denmark proper, two in the Faroe Islands and two in Greenland. Although the ruling Social Democrats became the largest party in the Folketing and increased their seat count, the opposition Venstre party was able to form a minority government headed by Lars Løkke Rasmussen with the support of the Danish People's Party, the Liberal Alliance and the Conservative People's Party.
The cabinet of Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt was the cabinet government of Denmark from 3 October 2011 to 3 February 2014. It was a coalition between the Social Democrats, the Danish Social Liberal Party and the Socialist People's Party. On 9 August 2013, Helle Thorning-Schmidt made a cabinet reshuffle and on 12 December 2013, she made a second cabinet reshuffle. The cabinet resigned on 3 February 2014, following the Socialist People's Party left the government on 30 January 2014. It was succeeded by the Cabinet of Helle Thorning-Schmidt II
Astrid Krag is a Danish politician, who is a member of the Folketing for the Social Democrats political party. She served as the Minister of Social Affairs and the Interior in the Cabinet of Mette Frederiksen. She previously served as Minister of Health and Prevention in the Cabinet of Helle Thorning-Schmidt from October 2011 until January 2014.
Annette Lilja Vilhelmsen is a Danish politician who served as chairperson of the Socialist People's Party from 2012 to 2014. She served as Minister for Social Affairs and Integration from August 2013 to February 2014 and Minister for Economic and Business Affairs from 2012 to 2013 in the first cabinet of Helle Thorning-Schmidt. She was a member of Folketing from 2011 to 2015.
Denmark in the European Union refers to the historical and current issues of Denmark's membership in the European Union (EU). Denmark has a permanent representation to the EU in Brussels, led by ambassador Jonas Bering Liisberg.
Christine Edda Antorini is a Danish politician for the Social Democrats, formerly for the Socialist People's Party. From 2011 to 2015 she was the Minister of Education in the Cabinet of Helle Thorning-Schmidt. She was a member of the Folketing from 1998 to 1999 and again from 2005 to 2018.
The Second Cabinet of Helle Thorning-Schmidt was the Government of Denmark in office from 3 February 2014 to 28 June 2015. It was a coalition government between the Social Democrats and the Social Liberal Party.
Henrik Eyser Overgaard-Nielsen is a British-Danish dentist and politician who served as a Brexit Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the North West of England between 2019 and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020.
Benny Engelbrecht is a Danish politician who has been a member of the Folketing for the Social Democrats since the 2007 general elections. He served as the Minister of Transport from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as Minister of Taxation from 2014 to 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
