Finance Ministry begins nationwide move in Nakskov

Denmark’s Finance Ministry has begun moving its work around the country, starting in Nakskov, in a tour that experts and local residents question, DR reports. Finance Minister Peter Hummelgaard says the initiative is intended to listen to people and gather ideas for the government’s planned comprehensive policy to improve balance across the country.

Hummelgaard and several senior civil servants are spending the day at Havnebygningen in Nakskov. The ministry is due to travel to Nykøbing Mors a few weeks later, with further stops planned.

Christoffer Green-Pedersen, head of the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University, said the visit had “an enormous amount of media event” about it. He did not expect it to produce concrete policy.

“The Finance Ministry is concerned with figures,” he said. “The system cannot be moved because someone hears a good story in Nakskov. It is the calculation models that matter, and I do not think they will recalibrate them after visiting towns around the country.”

The delegation in Nakskov includes Peter Hummelgaard, department head Kent Harnisch, division heads Jeppe Krogsgård Berg and Claus Andersen, and office head Mads Hersbøll.

The initiative has been compared with a move by the British prime minister to relocate part of his staff to Manchester under the name Number 10 North, in an attempt to decentralise power. Roger Buch, a municipal researcher and centre director at the Danish School of Media and Journalism, said the model was familiar from Danish municipalities, where several mayors regularly work outside their town halls.

“First and foremost, it is done to signal closeness and that one is concerned with the problems people have in different parts of the country. But it is primarily symbolic,” Buch said.

He also questioned the effect of Hummelgaard copying the approach. “I have not seen any examples where it turns upside down the decisions being made in the municipalities,” he said.

The recent closure of Nakskov’s sugar factory was the reason Hummelgaard chose the town as the first destination. He said it “exposes a Denmark moving at two speeds”. Klaus Hansen, the factory employees’ shop steward, said he had few expectations of the ministry’s temporary relocation.

“It is fine, but I could also imagine that it is partly to score some cheap points,” he said.

Lolland Mayor Marie-Louise Brehm Nielsen of the local list Din Stemme welcomed the minister and his officials. Her municipality is facing serious financial problems, while Hummelgaard controls the state’s finances. She has several proposals he could take into negotiations over next year’s budget.

Brehm Nielsen said it was important to meet residents where they were rather than simply sit in an office. She recently brought the key to Lolland Municipality to a meeting with Economy and Interior Minister Pia Olsen Dyhr to discuss the municipality’s difficult financial situation.

The idea of mobile mayoral offices in Denmark can be traced to former Aarhus Mayor Jacob Bundsgaard of the Social Democrats. Inspired by an Icelandic politician, he moved his office from the town hall to the then-challenged Tilst district for the first time in 2013.

Bundsgaard said the approach must be more than a symbol and should reflect a genuine ambition to take local problems seriously and include residents in political discussions. He warned that politicians risk returning to their offices without changing anything.

He said he preferred moving his office for one or two weeks at a time, emphasising that time was the key factor.