There was no shortage of grand words on how “historic” the agreement was, and Lars Løkke Rasmussen was so moved by the greatness of the agreement that he was close to shedding a tear in front of rolling cameras. However, two days later there are still no answers to one crucial question: Where will the many billions needed to make ‘the green tripartite’ a reality actually come from?
The government has announced that the Novo Nordisk Foundation will contribute 10 billion Danish kroner to the agreement, which includes a so-called area fund at a cost of 40 billion Danish kroner. But apart from that, there is not a word about where the many billions to pay for the “historic” plan will come from in the text released by the government about the agreement.
“If other parties had proposed 40 billion without saying where the money would come from, they would have been laughed at by Christiansborg,” says Samira Nawa, political spokesperson for the Radical Left. She explains that the other parties prior to the ‘dialogue meetings’ about the agreement, which the government has called for this week, have not been informed about how the government will find the many billions.
“It’s easy to sit and come up with wishes and proposals. There are also a lot of good elements in what has been done, especially in the nature area. It’s just that it also needs to be done economically responsibly, and the money has to add up. Therefore, I am very surprised by this,” says Samira Nawa.
The new agreement, which the government has entered into with a number of interest groups, involves a major transformation of Danish agriculture. The agreement includes a CO2 tax on agriculture, an area fund of 40 billion Danish kroner to purchase low-lying land and convert them into 250,000 hectares of forest, as well as a subsidy scheme of ten billion for the storage of biochar produced by pyrolysis.
The Conservatives’ Rasmus Jarlov is also very surprised that the government hasn’t even put forward a proposal for how to find the many billions. At the same time, he believes it is a separate “democratic problem” that the government is making a major agreement with a number of interest groups without involving the Parliament, and then suggests that there may only be minimal changes in the subsequent political negotiations.
Jarlov is particularly concerned that Lars Løkke Rasmussen has said that the agreement is “delicate” and that it could fall apart if parties in Parliament want to negotiate further. “It’s not a proper way to do it. It’s very easy to appear visionary when you just throw out grand plans without telling where such a large amount should come from,” says Rasmus Jarlov.
“It’s a completely non-committal thing to do. When you don’t even point out where such a large amount is going to come from, it’s really just a declaration of intent,” he says, explaining that the Conservatives are fundamentally positive about large parts of the agreement.
“But the problem right now is that it’s practically impossible to make a decision about something we have no idea how the government will pay for. We can’t be expected to just say yes to something where we have no idea if the government, for example, will take money from other climate efforts, or what the plan is,” says Rasmus Jarlov.
The section on economy in the agreement is only nine lines out of a total of 43 pages. Here, it simply states that “for the specific initiatives, there will have to be a subsequent political process among the parties in Parliament, where the government will have to secure a political majority for both specific legislation and financing of the expenses.”
It is then noted that there is a risk that some of the initiatives in the agreement could be considered state aid, and therefore precautions should also be taken that they may not be approved by the EU Commission. 365nyt.dk is working to get a comment from Minister of Finance, Stephanie Lose.