‘Luxury Lars’ to release his travel costs

After increasing pressure, and counter to his party’s claims, Lars Løkke Rasmussen will now make his travel expenses public

admin

Oct 16, 2013

After days of increasing political pressure to publicly release his travel expenses, opposition leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Venstre) announced yesterday that he would give the press "extraordinary access to all the information on [his] meeting, travel and lodging expenses".

Rasmussen has been assailed in the press since the tabloid Ekstra Bladet revealed that he racked up a bill of close to 800,000 kroner on first-class travel as chairman of the the climate organisation Global Green Growth Initiative (GGGI).

After Rasmussen's party cohorts in Venstre spent days arguing that he was simply unable to present documentation of his travel expenses – a claim that was rejected by the Foreign Ministry – Rasmussen now says he will release all of his travel receipts.

Nothing to hide
"There is – totally naturally – a very big interest in my activities in GGGI," Rasmussen wrote yesterday on Facebook. "I have nothing to hide, but I need to know the answers before I can give them."

Rasmussen said that while the 'Luxury Lars' stories dominated the media over the past weekend, the GGGI headquarters in Seoul was working at his request to put together a detailed overview of his travel costs.

The Venstre leader said that work would be completed by the weekend and will be presented at a press conference on Sunday afternoon together with the head of GGGI, Howard Bamsey.

Even though Rasmussen has been hammered by the press and his political opponents – and taken a beating in the polls – there is nothing to indicate that he violated any laws or GGGI's travel rules.

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