Two weeks ago the Social Democratic leader Thorning-Schmidt became Denmark's first woman prime minister. Her left-oriented coalition has promised to loosen Denmark's immigration policy.
She and her Finnish opposite number, Jyrki Katainen, discussed the European Union's economic crisis among other issues. Speaking to reporters afterwards, neither was very hopeful that any major steps forward would be made at this weekend's summit conference.
The meeting of eurozone heads of state or government begins in Brussels on Saturday, October 23. Financial markets and the euro both rallied on Monday on optimism that EU leaders were set to hammer out a final deal to rescue debt-laden Greece from bankruptcy.
