Lars Løkke Rasmussen

Lars Løkke Rasmussen was born in Vejle to Jeppe Rasmussen and Lise Løkke Rasmussen. His last name is Rasmussen, while Løkke is his middle name.

He graduated from high school in 1983, and was the president of the youth branch of Venstre from 1986 to 1989. He graduated with a law degree (cand. jur) from the University of Copenhagen in 1992. From 1990 to 1995 he worked as a self-employed consultant.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen is married to Sólrun Løkke Rasmussen (née Sólrun Jákupsdóttir). Together they have three children.

Minister of the Interior and Health

Lars Løkke Rasmussen served as Interior and Health Minister between 2001 and 2007 until he was appointed Minister of Finance in 2007. He was responsible for negotiating a 2002 agreement between Venstre, the Conservatives, the Social Democrats and the Danish People's Party giving patients in public hospitals the right to select a private hospital, provided that the public hospital had been unable to treat the patient within two months. In 2007, this time limit was lowered to one month. Since 2002, the government has awarded extra funds earmarked at reducing the waiting list at National Health Service hospitals, a grant sometimes referred to by the media as Løkkeposen (A pun on 'lykkepose' the Danish word for a goodie bag). He also represented the government during negotiations regarding a reform of the system by which richer municipalities transfer part of their tax incomes to poorer municipalities.

Municipal reform of 2007

As Minister of the Interior and Health, Lars Løkke Rasmussen spearheaded the municipal reform that reduced Denmark's 271 municipalities to 98, and abolished the 14 counties and replaced them with five regions.

His son Bergur Løkke Rasmussen was a Member of the European Parliament from 2022-2024, and is currently a member of the Regional Council of the Capital Region of Denmark.

Venstres Ungdom chairmanship and Afghanistan mission

Lars Løkke Rasmussen served as chairman of the youth branch of Venstre from 1986 to 1989. One of his initiatives was to establish an alternative to Operation Dagsværk – an annual one day fundraising campaign by high school students collecting money for third world countries – since Operation Dagsværk at the time was spearheaded by members of the Danish Communist Youth. Rasmussen's campaign was supported by the party youth branch, and raised 600,000 DKK which were spent on school equipment in Soviet occupied Afghanistan. Lars Løkke Rasmussen led a Danish delegation to Afghanistan delivering the collected funds, and a photograph taken by photographer Jørn Stjerneklar shows him and two other delegation members disguised as Afghans. Another photo shows him holding an AK-47, while standing together with three Mujahideen. The photos have generated a lot of media attention in Denmark, after the Danish participation in the war in Afghanistan and especially as Rasmussen moved up the rankings at Venstre.

County Mayor and deputy chairman of Venstre

Rasmussen was elected deputy chairman of Venstre in 1998, at the same time as Anders Fogh Rasmussen assumed the position as party leader after Uffe Ellemann-Jensen. In 1998, he was elected as county mayor of Frederiksborg County, a position he occupied until 2001, when he joined the first Fogh Rasmussen cabinet.

Minister of Finance

After then Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen won his second reelection in 2007 he created his third cabinet in which Lars Løkke Rasmussen was appointed Minister of Finance. This was seen as a clear indicator that Rasmussen was next in line to follow Fogh as leader of Venstre and prime minister, when Fogh would leave Danish politics.

As Finance Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen led the negotiations concerning funds to banks affected by the 2008 financial crisis.

Tax spending

Rasmussen has on several occasions been accused of spending tax payer money on himself and his family. In the spring of 2008, he was accused by the media - essentially the Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet - of having charged his official accounts with considerable expenses he should have paid himself, e.g. restaurants, cigarettes, taxis, and hotels, both as county mayor and as minister. All of this has been well documented, according to several independent media sources, although all charges were dropped and there was never a court trial. It was something that was according to the rules of the party Venstre. In May 2007, Rasmussen was again accused by Ekstra Bladet of having his ministry pay for a hotel room in Copenhagen when he privately attended a Paul McCartney concert in Horsens in 2004. Since the many serious scandals surrounding Rasmussen were brought to the attention of the public, Venstre has suffered in the polls.

Global Green Growth

In 2013, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) was criticized by two member countries for its financial management: Norway withheld $10 million in donations, citing excessive spending on flights and food by GGGI former Council Chairman Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and both Norway and Denmark demanded an Audit of the organization's finances before renewing support for 2014. Rasmussen was, as the chairman, accused of being greedy, while the other members of GGGI were not accused.

School pressure

In 2018, Rasmussen's wife Sólrun Løkke Rasmussen, facing termination from her job as a teacher, was called to a meeting with the head of the school where she worked. Rasmussen, as his wife's civil assessor, accompanied her to the meeting, along with his bodyguards. His wife was fired at the meeting. The case resulted in criticism as Rasmussen's presence, as then-Prime Minister, could be perceived as inappropriate pressure on the school leader; for meetings of this sort, it is usually the union representative that functions as the civil assessor.