Helle Thorning-Schmidt has particularly come under fire for the decision, after criticizing then Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen in 2009 for meeting the Dalai Lama in a private capacity, and not in his position as head of the government. Before coming to power, Thorning-Schmidt had said that "of course" she would hold such a meeting, despite the possible repercussions for her country's relationship with China.
However, since taking office in 2011 Thorning-Schmidt appears to have changed her mind on the prospect, while Foreign Minister Lidegaard is reported to have justified the snub by saying that the Dalai Lama never formally requested a meeting, according to Denmark's TheLocal.
"It is reprehensible that it [the government] will not meet the Dalai Lama as a religious leader who received the Nobel Peace Prize," Gustav Sieg Sorensen, a member of Lidegaard's own Radikale Venstre party, told the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
The Dalai Lama, who since 1959 has been living in exile in northern India, will be in the Danish capital on Wednesday and Thursday to give spiritual teaching and a public talk on the subject of "Strength Through Compassion and Connection," having been invited by Danish-based Tibetan lama, Lakha Lama Rinpoche.
Wednesday's visit will be the eighth time the Tibetan leader has visited Denmark: on a previous visit to the country in 2000 he met with then Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, and in 2003 met with Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
The 2009 meeting between Prime Minister Lokke Rasmussen, Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller and Tibet's spiritual leader led to a cooling of relations between China, which condemns the Dalai Lama as a separatist, and Denmark. China responded to the meeting with a statement that it was "strongly dissatisfied" with the encounter between the leaders.
