Denmark’s pro-climate, anti-migrant PM

Welcome to the Capitals by Eddy Wax, with Nicoletta Ionta. We welcome feedback and tips here. Sign up here.
In today’s edition:

- Meet Mette Frederiksen
- Von der Leyen's no-confidence vote
- Growing pressure from Renew, S&D
- A Russian sub off France
- No cohesion on cohesion funds

Mette Frederiksen, Denmark’s centre-left prime minister for the past six years, has learned to love the EU the hard way.
Once a typical Danish Eurosceptic, she has reversed her penny-pinching stance on the EU budget and has taken to calling herself a “staunch European".
What prompted this change? “It’s driven primarily by insecurity and I think by the realisation that we are alone and we cannot count on the Americans anymore,” said Marlene Wind, professor of European politics at Copenhagen University.
Frederiksen is on guard against Donald Trump’s threats to invade Greenland and Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and hybrid warfare in northern Europe.
As Denmark launches its six-month EU presidency, and welcomes Ursula von der Leyen’s commissioners to Aarhus today, it’s clear that Frederiksen wants to make her mark on Brussels, a place she has long viewed with suspicion and quite a lot of boredom. Until recently, Denmark was one of the few countries that didn’t even have a government spokesperson in Brussels.
The “changing world” mentioned in her presidency motto, has pushed her back towards Europe. The timing is propitious. Frederiksen and von der Leyen are already converging on supporting Ukraine, upping defence spending, boosting climate action – something Frederiksen has long championed – and slashing immigration.

Frederiksen's hardline approach to migration – now all but consensus in Denmark – is nothing new: she made it a priority on day one of taking over her party in 2015 when the far right peaked at 21% support, my Danish colleague Magnus Lund Nielsen tells me. Now, in a change that encapsulates her EU-turn, she’s throwing all her weight behind hardline European solutions to migration issues.
Her stance has won her plaudits from the right but put her at odds with the rest of the EU Socialists, especially Spain’s Pedro Sánchez who makes a demographic and economic case for more migrants.
Frederiksen has flirted with controversial plans to send migrants to Rwanda and squashed asylum numbers. Her migration policy that has more in common with the far right. She claims that migrants will undermine the rights of Danish workers. By doing so she’s splintered the support for the far-right Danish People’s Party (who sit with the Patriots in Brussels).
The seemingly odd combination of high climate ambition and migration crackdowns – two areas where Frederiksen played the long game – is reminiscent of at least first-term von der Leyen, who also took power in 2019.
Wind, the Danish academic, likened them both to “chameleons”, “moving when the population moves” – and for now that move is to the right.
Despite her three-party coalition polling far below its former strength, there is little indication that Frederiksen's tenure is nearing its end.
She’s become a bit more European – but Europe has become a bit more Danish too.

Ursula von der Leyen will face a no-confidence vote in the European Parliament next week, after a motion from ECR Romanian MEP Gheorghe Piperea gathered enough support.
It is highly unlikely to succeed but with her traditional socialist and liberal allies still fuming over her rightward shift, it underscores the level of animosity facing the Commission president.
The move will be debated Monday, and voted on Thursday in Strasbourg, Roberta Metsola told MEPs yesterday evening.
Originally backed by 74 MEPs, the motion has 31 signatories from the ECR group, despite the bloc having a commissioner in von der Leyen’s college, Italy’s Raffaele Fitto of Brothers of Italy. The move lays bare the rift within ECR, as its two powerhouses, Meloni’s party and Poland’s Law & Justice, are at odds over bringing the Commission down. The Italians have distanced themselves from the push, whereas all the Poles have signed it.
For the Socialists, the math is simple: signing or backing the motion would be political suicide. “Clearly, we need to discuss it within the group, but our line is clear: we don’t vote with the far right,” said S&D leader Iratxe García, speaking to reporters last night.
The motion of censure will pass only if it wins a two-thirds majority of votes cast, representing over half of all MEPs.

Renew chief Valérie Hayer held a one-hour meeting with Ursula von der Leyen at the Berlaymont on Wednesday, Euractiv has learned. The meeting follows von der Leyen’s sit-down last week with S&D leader García, amid growing frustration over the EPP’s drift to the right and the Commission’s threat to withdraw a bill meant to prevent greenwashing.
Back in November, Renew, S&D, and the EPP signed a loose agreement on political priorities – but it didn’t stop the centre right from making other allies.

GERMANY
Germany’s coalition parties are haggling over reducing energy taxes for consumers – one of the key promises of the coalition treaty. But following the presentation of their first budget, Chancellor Merz and Finance Minister Klingbeil backpedalled, citing a lack of funding options. A highly-anticipated coalition meeting on Wednesday did not produce a solution.
FRANCE
According to Ouest France, a Russian Kilo-class submarine surfaced on 28 May near a French trawler that was fishing off the coast of the Côtes-d’Armor department. The Atlantic Maritime Prefecture, based in Brest, stated that the vessel had been “monitored for some time” and was “in transit”. The Russian vessel was “escorted” by a French Navy frigate.
ITALY
Italy is renewing efforts to map and develop its mineral resources with its first major public geological research investment since the early 1990s, prioritising materials the European Commission defines as critical and strategic for the EU’s economy and security. Read more.
POLAND
Polish parliamentary Speaker Szymon Hołownia will swear in President-elect Karol Nawrocki on 6 August after the Supreme Court validated his election win on Tuesday, even though legal challenges and allegations of vote irregularities remain. Read more.
CZECHIA
Czech politicians from the centre-right EPP have joined conservatives in firmly rejecting the European Commission’s proposal to cut 1990-level CO2 emissions by 90% by 2040. Read more.

In a non-paper seen by Euractiv, a bloc of mostly eastern and southern EU states, urged the European Commission not to merge cohesion funds into a centralised megafund under the next EU budget.

The move comes just ahead of the Commission’s first proposal for the post-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework, due 16 July, with a second package coming after the summer. The group, including the likes of Italy, Poland, and Spain, joins growing resistance to any shake-up of the €392 billion pot meant to support poorer regions, echoing concerns raised in a letter by 149 regional governments last month.

Patience is wearing thin in Europe’s most powerful political family, the EPP, over its president's attempts to remote control national leaders at EU summits. Read more.
Negotiations over the EU's proposed European Defence Industrial Programme between Parliament and the Council – due to start today – will hinge primarily on just how much money can flow to non-European defence companies. Read more.
In 2024, the EU spent an estimated €21.9 billion on Russian fossil fuels imports – just 1% less than the previous year. To put that into perspective: the amount exceeds the €18.7 billion in financial aid the EU provided to Ukraine in the same year. We break down the facts on the bloc's addiction to Russian energy here.

Visit of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Aarhus, Denmark, for the start of the rotating EU presidency; joint press conference with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
Plenary session of the Committee of the Regions in Brussels.

Contributors: Magnus Lund Nielsen, Kjeld Neubert, Nick Alipour, Laurent Geslin, Aleksandra Krzysztoszek, Barbara Bodalska, Aneta Zachová.
Editors: Vince Chadwick and Sofia Mandilara.