Today’s news / SocDems now OK to accept medals
The Social Democrats are dropping their principle of not accepting royal orders. Times are different from how they were 100 years ago according to Mette Frederiksen. In the picture the prime minister shakes hands with the queen in 1922 on the occasion of the queen’s 50th anniversary on the throne. Photo: Ida Marie Odgaard/archive/Ritzau Scanpix.

SocDems now OK to accept medals

“A peculiar relic of the past” with a “comic tinge to it”. The first Social Democratic prime minister, Thorvald Stauning, was not impressed with royal orders when he spoke to Politiken in 1930. Ten years earlier, during the Easter Crisis in 1920, King Christian X had tried to depose the then government. And since then, the Social Democrats have maintained strained relations with royal orders. Until now. On Tuesday, prior to the Queen’s abdication on Sunday, it was decided at a group meeting that it will now be up to the individual Social Democrat whether they wish to accept orders if they are offered.
     Historically, according to Michael Bregnsbo, associate professor of history at the University of Southern Denmark, the orders were perceived as a symbol of the society of privilege that the party wanted to do away with when it came to power. “The Social Democrats represented the working class, that to some extent had been outside the good company and stood in opposition to the elite of society – whether they were officers, factory owners or members of the royal family.
     According to Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, the reason why the Social Democrats are now dropping the principle that they do not receive orders is because the time is different than it was 100 years ago. “There has been respect both ways about that position. But things are changing, and so is Denmark,” she said Tuesday after the group meeting. “We have a very strong royal family, and with this we want to acknowledge not least Queen Margrethe’s efforts for Denmark. The Prime Minister herself, as a young politician, was not a royalist. But she said in her New Year’s speech, that she had changed her mind. /ritzau/