She is the woman who will soon face an impossible challenge: how to get Europe out of its present mess. She is also something of a rarity on Europe's carousel-like political scene – a centre-left leader who has actually managed to win an election.
Denmark's prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, is holding talks with David Cameron in Downing Street on her first official trip to the UK.
Top of the agenda is the crisis convulsing the eurozone. Britain and Denmark are outside it, but clearly affected by it. Thorning-Schmidt says she wants to canvass the views of Britain before Denmark assumes the EU's rotating presidency in January. In a telephone interview with the Guardian on the eve of her London trip, Thorning-Schmdit conceded the European situation was extremely grave. "We do have a crisis," she said, adding that it is one that affects all 27 EU member states, including its 10 non-Euro economies, and not just the 17 led by Germany and France inside the faltering eurozone. She implicitly rejected the idea that Europe should break up into different groups.
Asked whether she was encouraged by the resignation on Saturday of the scandal-plagued Silvio Berlusconi as Italy's prime minister, she remained diplomatic. "I think … the changes in Greece and Italy have helped our crisis management. All those decisions will be useful in order to move Europe forward, and away from the crisis," she said.
The EU needs to ensure that its members impose "strong discipline" and "follow the rules" so the current economic meltdown is never repeated, she added. She has met Cameron in Brussels and finds him "easy to talk to". What about his internal battle with Tory Eurosceptics? "I know too much about British politics to comment on British politics," she replied. » | Luke Harding | Monday, November 14, 2011
