The government will not relax rules for the 16,000 people who risk losing their unemployment benefits from next year.

“Some people say that we haven’t done enough for the unemployed. I disagree entirely. We have done a lot to help the unemployed,” the prime minister said during her weekly news conference, adding: “We have no plans to change the unemployment benefit rules”.

The prime minister has come under increasing pressure from the unions and elements within her own Social Democratic Party to find a solution for unemployed people who fall foul of the reduction in the unemployment benefit period.

On Sunday, a Social Democratic backbencher Jan Johansen called on the government to help jobless people. A majority in the Aarhus City Council also called on the government to act.

Thorning-Schmidt says the government has worked hard to ‘help those who risk dropping out of the unemployment benefit system,” adding that the shortening of the unemployment benefit period to two years has been postponed by six months and the government and unions have agreed on an ‘acute package’.

The prime minister went on to say that a majority of Danes had voted for parties who support the new unemployment benefit rules.

“It is important to remember that when the Danes chose their Parliament a year ago, 60 per cent of the electorate voted for parties who want to reduce the unemployment benefit period. We have kept to that after the election,” Thorning-Schmidt said.

In 2010, the Social Democrats voted against tightening the unemployment benefit rules.

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