Deputy Prime Minister (Denmark)  Deputy Prime Minister (Danish: "vicestatsminister") is an informal description sometimes used, especially by the press, for the minister who is second in the order of precedence. This is the minister who will usually be appointed as acting prime minister when the prime minister is unavailable. Traditionally the minister of foreign affairs holds the second rank. It is only when the order of precedence deviates from this tradition, that number two is referred to as "vicestatsminister". This happens in the unusual case when the leader of the second largest coalition party is not minister of foreign affairs. In some cases the leader of the third largest coalition party, who is as a matter of course third in precedence, has been called 2nd deputy prime minister (2. "vicestatsminister"). This tradition goes back at least to 1957.