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Today in Denmark: A round-up of the news on Friday

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Today in Denmark: A round-up of the news on Friday
Sygeplejerskekonflikten behandles i Folketingssalen fredag den 27. august 2021. Folketinget er i dag samlet ekstraordinært for at 2. og 3. behandle et lovforslag, som skal stoppe sygeplejerskernes strejke. Strejken kan dermed være slut lørdag.

Find out what's going on in Denmark today with The Local's short roundup of the news in less than five minutes.

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Denmark to scrap ALL Covid-19 restrictions

Denmark will on September 10th stop classifying Covid-19 as an "illness which is a critical threat to society", meaning all remaining restrictions will expire, and you will not even require a coronapas to enter nightclubs or Superliga football games. 

In a press release issued on Friday morning, the country’s health minister Magnus Heunicke said that the high level of vaccination in Denmark, particularly among the vulnerable, had radically altered the risks posed by the virus.

“The epidemic is under control, we have record high vaccination rates,” he said in a statement. “As a result, on September 10th, we can drop some of the special rules we have had to introduce in the fight against Covid-19.”

September 10th marks the expiry date for that the executive order classifying Covid-19 as a “socially critical illness”, which was passed by the Danish parliament’s Epidemic Committee on March 10th last year. 

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Danish parliament imposes pay deal on striking nurses 

The Danish parliament on Friday passed a special bill imposing a pay deal on nurses and the Danish regions that employ them. 

The bill, which will force the parties to accept the compromise reached in talks with a government mediator earlier this year, was supported by the Social Democrats, the Liberals, the Radicals, the Conservatives, the New Right party and the Liberal Alliance. It was rejected by the Socialist Left Party, the Red-Green Alliance, the Danish People's Party, and the Christian Democrats.

The members of Denmark's nursing union in May voted down the pay deal, opening the way for a 10-week strike. 

Denmark to join ‘green list’ for quarantine-free travel to the UK

Denmark will next week move onto the UK's "green list", meaning travellers from Denmark who are not vaccinated no longer not need to go into quarantine on arrival in the UK.

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Denmark has evacuated nearly 1,000 people from Afghanistan 

A total of 988 people have been flown to Denmark from Afghanistan during the government's evacuation, the country's foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday, with the last plane due to land on Friday. 

Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod said in a statement that he was relieved that the operation had been carried out, despite the challenging conditions. 

"We can now put an end to an evacuation effort, which will no doubt be written into the history books. I think anyone who has seen the pictures from Kabul can see that it has been a hugely serious and very difficult situation," he said. "Words cannot describe the difficult conditions under which our people in Kabul and Islamabad have operated 24 hours a day."

Among the evacuees are 226 people who served as interpreters or other employees for the Danish armed forces in Afghanistan, or who are their family members. There are a further 161 Afghans who have worked for NATO, the EU or the UN, together with their relatives.

 

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