The unity of the Realm is acted out in the principle of "The Unity of the Realm". This principle is derived from Article 1 of the Danish Constitution which specifies that constitutional law applies equally to all areas of the Danish Realm. The Constitutional Act specifies that sovereignty is to continue to be exclusively with the authorities of the Realm (the Danish government and parliament). Faroese or Greenlandic self-governance cannot be established by international treaties but must be established by Danish law; the Danish parliament (the Folketing) delegates a precisely defined part of its competence to the home rule authorities. The language of Denmark is
Folketing Business Affairs and Lars Barfoed, the Justice Minister, was widely expected, but on 14 January the Conservative group in the Folketing unanimously elected Barfoed as their new political leader. The Social Democrats under the leadership of Helle Thorning-Schmidt have enjoyed continuing majorities in opinion polls since late 2009 and hopes to form a centre-left government coalition consisting of the Socialist People's Party and the Social Liberal Party with parliamentary support from the small Red-Green Alliance. Both Margrethe Vestager (Social Liberal Party) and Villy Søvndal (Socialist People's Party) pledged their support to Thorning-Schmidt before the election. But there has been considerable