Yesterday, the financial spokesman for the Red Greens said his party would not support a budget agreement with the government unless it gave job or retraining guarantees for unemployment benefit recipients.

Today, the party political spokesman has changed the party stance, saying the issue was not a definitive demand by the party.

“We are demanding a solution to the unemployment benefit problem… We have suggested a job guarantee. We are not definitive about a job guarantee,” Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen tells Ritzau.

“We are definitive about a solution. That could be a job guarantee. If the government has other ideas, it can present them,” she adds.

Schmidt-Nielsen’ statement came as the Red Greens prepare for their first budget negotiating meeting with the government this evening at 8 p.m. At 9.30 p.m. the Liberals, who various government sources suggest are well on the road to a budget agreement with the government, are due in the negotiating room.

Schmidt-Nielsen’s about face appears to be an overnight paradigm shift for the Red Greens, whose financial spokesman Frank Aaen told Politiken yesterday that if the government was unable to provide a job or retraining schedule guarantee for everyone, then it would have to extend the unemployment benefit period.

Otherwise, he said, there would be no budget agreement with the Red Greens. He repeated the stance to TV2, adding that the requirement was a definitive one.

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