- It was a lot of coincidences all at once, and I'm sick and tired of it. And the group has been chewed out for this; it's simply not good enough.
That's what the Danish People's Party's group chair, Alex Ahrendtsen, says on Thursday, after a vote in the Folketing chamber surprised him when it ended with a majority for the government—thanks to a lack of DF presence during the vote.
The Danish People's Party itself had called for the urgent question session, which was held on Wednesday and primarily concerned the recent situation with the migrant flow to the Spanish exclave of Ceuta.
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How it went wrong
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Alex Ahrendtsen explains that the Danish People's Party was recently hit by a stress-related sick leave from MP Søren Boel Olesen, whose alternate has not yet taken their seat in the Folketing, as the alternate is away traveling.
- Secondly, I received some sick leave notifications this morning, which meant we couldn't manage to report them in time.
>
> And then thirdly, there was someone who simply went up to their office
> to get some papers and came down too late for the vote.
> Alex Ahrendtsen, DF group chair
- And then thirdly, there was someone who simply went up to their office to get some papers and came down too late for the vote. And then there was a fourth person who didn't make it back in time, says the DF group chair.
On Thursday, three adoption texts were to be voted on in the chamber. But when the first vote—which was an adoption text from the government—very surprisingly ended with a majority of 54 votes in favor and 52 votes against the government's proposal, the other two adoption texts lapsed.
This meant, among other things, that the adoption text that the Danish People's Party had prepared together with Venstre, the Conservatives, Liberal Alliance, the Denmark Democrats, the Citizens' Party, and the Faroese party Sambandsflokkurin never came to a vote.
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Chewing out from DF to DF
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Question: Have you spoken with the other parties (behind the adoption text, ed.), what have they said to you?
- What I discuss with other parties, I'm not going to mention to you. But I can at least tell you that this is not good enough, and the group has already been chewed out, and they'll get another one.
The Danish People's Party held a press conference earlier this week in connection with their summer group meeting at Hjerting Badehotel in Esbjerg. (Photo: © Claus Fisker, Ritzau Scanpix)
Question: What are you going to do going forward to avoid a repeat?
- That you correct things and follow the procedures I've laid out. That hasn't been done in this case, and we've also been hit by illness. A long-term sick leave where the substitute couldn't show up, and then some sick leave notifications this morning and last night that were impossible to fix.
- It's a series of unfortunate circumstances, but that doesn't help. The responsibility is ours, and it's not good enough, says Alex Ahrendtsen.
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