After a long period of political wrangling Connie Hedegaard has been nominated as Denmark’s EC represenatative

Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard will soon be off to Brussels as the Danish candidate for European Commissioner, according to the Prime Minister’s office.

With just two weeks to go before the UN Climate Change Conference, Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has created a new ministerial post to allow Hedegaard to continue in her role of organising the conference, as well as accepting the nomination as Denmark’s representative to the EC.

With immediate effect, Hedegaard will swap her title as Climate and Energy Minister to the more long-winded Minister for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009.

Replacing Hedegaard as climate and energy minister will be Prorector of the University of Copenhagen, Lykke Friis. Liberal political spokesman Peter Christensen confirmed today that Friis will become a member of their party and make her political affiliations known.

Friis’ appointment was unexpected, as she was not even a member of the government’s Liberal Party. Most pundits had predicted the party's climate spokesman, Lars Christian Lilleholt, or business spokesman Jacob Jensen as the likeliest candidates.

Hedegaard’s appointment to the EC will put an end to the whirlwind of political drama that has surrounded her place in European climate affairs.

EC President José Manuel Barroso had voiced his desire to see the Dane take the post, but Prime Minister Lars Løkke Ramussen had hesitated naming her – not least because he had possibly preferred someone from his own Liberal Party to get the job, rather than the Conservative Hedegaard.

But with Friis taking the climate minister post, Rasmussen has now got another Liberal into his cabinet. He added that Hedegaard’s nomination as the Danish EC candidate took place following talks with Barroso.

Both Hedegaard and Friis will be presented to the Queen at Amalienborg Palace later today by the prime minister.

The European Commission consists of one commissioner from each member state, appointed to have responsibility for a particular department. However, the current commissioners are in effect ‘lame ducks’, as the term contract for them expired on 31 October.

A new commission cannot be elected until the Lisbon Treaty officially takes effect.

Denmark’s present representative on the EC is Mariann Fischer Boel, who has headed the commission’s Agriculture and Rural Development division since November 2004.