Jesper Petersen is the new Danish Minister for Higher Education and Science

After a government reshuffle, there will be a new Danish Minister for Higher Education and Science.

It will be the 39-year-old Jesper Petersen, who has been political spokesman for the Social Democratic Party, and who has now been promoted to minister.

This is according to the Danish Prime Minister’s Office.

He takes over from Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen, who, after more than two years as Minister for Higher Education and Science moves on to the Ministry of Culture.

The reshuffle is after the former culture minister Joy Mogensen has left the Danish parliament in Christiansborg. She wrote on Facebook, that she was drained after the loss of her daughter and a hectic period of handling corona.

Jesper Petersen, who has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Copenhagen, was elected to the Danish Parliament for the Socialist People’s Party in 2007, but left the party in 2013 when he disagreed with the political line of its former chairperson Annette Vilhelmsen.

He joined the Social Democrats, where he was both finance and tax spokesman before he became political spokesman when the party came into government in 2019.