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TODAY IN DENMARK

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

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

Published: 9 September 2021 10:36 CEST

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

Photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

First care home residents to receive third Covid-19 vaccine dose

The first people in Denmark to receive a third jab of a Covid-19 vaccine as a booster will do so today.

Health authorities recently stated that groups vulnerable to serious illnesses with Covid-19 will be given a booster. Health care sector workers are also likely to be offered a third dose at a later date.

The third vaccine is intended to give increased immunity against the virus over the winter months.

READ ALSO: Denmark to give third vaccine jab to people with weakened immune systems

Striking nurses to face tribunal court

The Danish nurses’ union, DSU, will today face the regional health authorities which employ nurses in the labour tribunal court, Arbejdsretten.

That is because nurses at several hospitals have recently gone on strike in breach of their collective bargaining agreement.

The wildcat strikes are a protest in turn at government intervention in talks between the nurses’ union and employers over a new deal for wages and working conditions, which broke down over the summer. Thousands of nurses subsequently took part in union-sanctioned strikes.

The nurses could face fines for striking in breach of their new, government-enforced agreement.

You can read more on the background to this story here and more about the Danish labour model here.

Number of job vacancies highest for years

New Statistics Denmark data shows that more private sector jobs are currently unfilled than at any time in the last decade.

A total of 53,500 vacancies were registered in the second quarter of 2021, an increase of 14,000 compared to the preceding quarter and the highest number for 11 years, news wire Ritzau reports.

Thousands of small children to join chorus on national song day

Today is national song day for pre-school children, with around 18,000 little ones at nurseries and kindergartens invited to events around the country.

This year’s theme for the event is wild animals.

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Today in Denmark: a roundup of the news on Wednesday

Denmark Democrat leader attacks government for relaxing migration policy

Inger Støjberg, the leader of the far-right Denmark Democrats, has attacked the government, and in particular Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen for relaxing immigration policy, and ignoring the principle that refugees who no longer need Denmark’s protection should go home.

Støjberg was arguably Denmark’s most hardline ever immigration minister during Rasmussen’s second term as prime minister between 2015 and 2019. Both Støjberg and Rasmussen have since left the centre-right Liberal Party to form their own parties.

As migration minister, Støjberg brought in a law allowing police to strip refugees of their jewellery, a ban on Islamic face veils, and a requirement that all those getting citizenship shake the hand of the mayor.

“I carried it in my heart,” she said of those policies. “That is why I am infinitely sad that Lars Løkke Rasmussen did not take it to heart and is now doing away with the cornerstone, which is to send people home who no longer need our protection.”

Rasmussen has since called these measures “gesture politics”, saying that were only adopted to put pressure on the Social Democrats.

However, he accused Støjberg of “overdoing it and overinterpreting things”.

“I completely agree that when you apply for asylum, it is because there is a special situation, and if it changes, you have to go home,” he said. “It just can’t be such a hard-boiled point of view, because then you have a heart of ice if you can’t also look at it a little practically.”

Danish vocab: grundstenen – the cornerstone

Danish IT company declared bankrupt after revelations

The Danish IT company Meew has been declared bankrupt by Denmark’s commercial court, weeks after it cancelled a listing on the Spotlight exchange in Stockholm following revelations that its founder fabricated qualifications.

The Finans newspaper revealed in mid-March that Meew founder and managing director Armin Kavousi had falsely claimed to have a doctorate and to have been a brain researcher, among other things falsely claiming to have a master’s in neuroscience from Aston University in Great Britain.

The following day, the company’s board resigned, and the stock market listing was abandoned.

“They tried to investigate whether there was an opportunity to transfer the healthy parts of the company,” Per Astrup Madsen, a partner in the law firm DLA Piper, told Finans. “There was contact with an investor, but it has not ended up with an actual agreement. Therefore, there was no basis for allowing the reconstruction to continue.”

Danish vocab: at blive erklæret konkurs – to be declared bankrupt

‘No quick fix’ for Danish cancer waiting lists: health minister

Health Minister Sophie Løhde said on Thursday that she “deeply regrets” missed deadlines for bowel cancer treatment at Aarhus University Hospital, but that the government does not have an immediate fix for the problem.

Danish law requires cancer patients to be operated on within two weeks of the decision to operate being made.

Broadcaster DR recently reported that 182 patients had waited too long for an operation at Aarhus University Hospital (AUH). Following DR’s report, a Region Central Jutland survey found that 293 patients had waited for more than the two weeks prescribed by law over the past year.

Løhde was asked at a briefing on Tuesday whether bowel cancer patients at AUH can now expected to be operated on within two weeks.

“In reality, that should have happened the entire time. I can’t stand here and guarantee that it will happen again tomorrow or the next day, as much as I’d like to,” she said.

“What I can guarantee is that this has the utmost attention on the part of the government.”

Danish vocab: dybt beklageligt – deeply regrettable

‘Record number’ of foreigners move to Denmark for work

A record number of people moved to Denmark from abroad for work reasons in 2022, according to national agency Statistics Denmark.

A total of 31,600 people moved to Denmark to work last yer, according to a Statistics Denmark review released on Tuesday.

The figure corresponds to a 24 percent increase compared to 2021 and is the highest in the history of the statistic, which goes back to 1997.

The average number of work immigrants in the decade prior to 2022 was 21,000 people.

Specifically, the number describes the amount of people who were given work permits in Denmark in a given year.

Danish vocab: rekordmange – a record number (literally “record many”)

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