Danish P.M.: Recovery requires cooperation

Denmark's first female prime minister told lawmakers Tuesday everyone in government must cooperate to get the country through "tough times." In her first speech to Parliament as prime minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt said she wants to restore "broad-based cooperation," the Copenhagen Post reported. "We are the government for all of Denmark," she said. "It's only by working together that we can pull Denmark through these tough times. Denmark needs us to stick together." Thorning-Schmidt heads the Social Democrat-Social Liberal-Socialist People's Party coalition that won a narrow majority of the 179 seats in Parliament in the Sept. 15 election. The vote ended 10 years of rule by a center-right coalition headed by the Liberal Party. Like many other European countries, Denmark is in an economic slump, with unemployment at 7.1 percent and a rising deficit. Thorning-Schmidt called for a balanced budget by 2020 but said she also hopes to use government investment to stimulate the economy and create jobs.