Among the key achievements that Enhedslisten delivered are:

• Substantially reduced grocery prices through a 50 percent reduction in VAT on food, together with zero VAT on fruit and vegetables;

• free public transport for all children and young people up to the age of twenty-two for all modes of transportation including trains, subway, buses, and ferries in all of Denmark;

• legislation making it significantly easier to build social housing and convert private rental housing into nonprofit housing cooperatives.

Most important, however, we secured a plan to make dental care free for everyone over the next ten years, with the first phase beginning during this parliamentary term and covering roughly a quarter of the population — around two million people. It is the largest expansion of the Danish welfare state in decades and, as far as I know, the only example of universally free dental care anywhere in the world besides Cuba.

The negotiations also involved compromises. The centrist parties secured a reduction in corporate taxation and lower taxes for parts of the upper middle class. But these measures will largely be financed through new taxes on the wealthy, including a doubling of inheritance tax on large inheritances. Overall, the tax reform will reduce economic inequality.

Summing it up: Enhedslisten ran a focused election campaign on affordability — reduced grocery prices, free dental care, more affordable public housing, and free public transportation — and promised to reduce inequality. In a muddy Danish political landscape, we are creating real change for working people while delivering on all our promises.

For Enhedslisten, winning immediate improvements in people’s lives is not enough. As a socialist party, we continuously seek to achieve reforms that also shift the balance of power in society — what André Gorz famously described as nonreformist reforms. In other words, reforms that both improve living standards today and move society in a more democratic and socialist direction.

Free dental care is a good example. As I have argued in my book Nordic Socialism, decommodification should be at the heart of any socialist strategy. It means taking essential goods and services out of the market and transforming them into universal social rights. When health care, transport, or education become rights rather than commodities, people become less dependent on both the market and their employers — and therefore freer.

Universal rights of this kind also tend to be remarkably durable. Unlike tax cuts or cash transfers, they get broad democratic support, making them much harder for future governments to dismantle. That is why universality matters. Rights available to everyone create stronger and more resilient welfare institutions than means-tested programs.

The housing reforms provide another example of what I would call socialist reform. Under the new agreement, municipalities will be able to require that up to 40 percent of new housing developments consist of affordable, cooperatively owned housing. Even more significant, nonprofit housing associations will gain a right of first refusal whenever private rental buildings are sold.

If implemented ambitiously, this could gradually shift thousands of homes from expensive speculative ownership into permanently affordable, nonprofit, collectively owned housing — particularly in cities such as Copenhagen, where soaring rents have become a major social problem.

These reforms do more than improve lives of pensioners, students, and working families. They reduce dependence on markets, strengthen democratic and collective ownership, and gradually expand the sphere of economic life organized around social rights rather than private profit. They are modest steps, but they point toward a different kind of economy — one that is both more equal and more democratic. And they are of course just the beginning.

The achievements on welfare and redistribution cannot hide the fact that the socialist left was unable to shift the Social Democrats on migration. The new government platform largely preserves the restrictive migration policy that has come to define Danish politics over the past decade.

Around ten years ago, the Social Democrats adopted a new strategy. They moved to the right on migration while shifting slightly left on economic policy — a combination that became known as the “Mette Frederiksen doctrine.” Initially, it appeared to “work”: support for the far right declined, and many argued that adopting tougher migration policies had neutralized the issue.

Many of us on the Left warned that this would only be temporary. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened. Rather than disappearing, the far right has radicalized. Today it openly campaigns for “remigration” and a so-called “Muslim brake,” meaning a net reduction in the number of Muslims in Denmark — ideas that would once have been dismissed as beyond the pale but are now part of mainstream political debate. And now, support for the far right is once again growing, demonstrating that you cannot defeat the far right by adopting its agenda. You only contribute to and legitimize its worldview and policies.

For the Left, the consequences of the new doctrine have been profound. The shift of the Social Democrats helped create a broad parliamentary majority for restrictive migration policies and contributed to increasing public support for such policies.

This is also one of the reasons Enhedslisten chose to remain outside government. It allows us to remain a clear and independent voice against discriminatory migration policies and the increasingly racist rhetoric that accompanies them. We oppose these policies whenever they are proposed, and we stand alongside minority communities demanding changes. At the same time, we try to challenge the political logic behind the Right’s success.

Racism and division do not improve the lives of working people — they weaken our ability to act together. Rising food prices, soaring rents, and economic insecurity are not caused by our Muslim colleagues and neighbors. They are the result of growing inequality, concentrated wealth, and economic power. Our task is to build solidarity around those shared interests instead of allowing fear and prejudice to divide us.

For us, the answer is therefore twofold. We must continue to resist racism and defend equal rights with clarity and consistency. At the same time, we must demonstrate that socialist politics, not right-wing demagoguery, delivers tangible improvements in people’s everyday lives. That you can always count on socialists in positions of power to lower the cost of living for you and your family. When we expand universal welfare, reduce inequality, and strengthen democratic ownership, we also undermine the sense of insecurity on which the far right thrives.

That is why the reforms Enhedslisten secured in these negotiations matter beyond Denmark. They show that even in difficult political circumstances it is possible to win reforms that both improve people’s lives today and begin to shift power away from markets and concentrated wealth. Those are the kinds of reforms that can rebuild confidence in democratic politics — and, ultimately, help create a stronger foundation for socialism.