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TODAY IN DENMARK

Today in Denmark: A roundup of the news on Wednesday

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

Published: 13 October 2021 09:35 CEST
Denmark's players celebrate World Cup qualification after defeating Austria in Copenhagen.
Denmark's players celebrate World Cup qualification after defeating Austria in Copenhagen. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix

Covid-19 travel restrictions to be simplified and made more lenient

Domestic coronavirus restrictions were lifted some time ago, and a plan to further ease restrictions on travel into Denmark will begin to take effect later this week.

That is after a broad majority of parliament yesterday agreed on “significant easing and simplification of travel restrictions”.

Amongst other things, the deal means the end of Covid-19 border control by police, restriction-free entry for vaccinated people from EU, Schengen and OECD countries, and simpler rules for unvaccinated people.

We’ll have full detail on this in an article on our website this morning.

Danish artist hires lawyers to reclaim Hong Kong Tiananmen statue

The Danish artist behind a Hong Kong sculpture mourning those killed in Tiananmen Square has instructed a lawyer to secure his work and bring it overseas after the city’s flagship university ordered its sudden removal, news wire AFP reports.

The eight-metre high “Pillar of Shame” by Jens Galschiøt has sat on the University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) campus since 1997, the year the city was handed back to China.

It features 50 anguished faces and tortured bodies piled on one another and commemorates democracy protesters killed by Chinese troops around Beijing’s  Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Last week Hong Kong’s oldest university ordered it to be removed by 5pm on Wednesday citing “legal advice” as authorities crack down on dissent.

New academy for prison officers to open in southeast Denmark 

An acute shortage of prison officers in Denmark has led to a campaign to urge more people to take up the job and the opening of a new training academy, which will be located in the southeastern part of the country.

The new school will add to two existing academies in Juelsminde in East Jutland and Birkerød, North Zealand.

Shorter travelling distances will encourage more people in southern Denmark to train at the new school it is hoped. The exact municipality in which it will be placed is as yet undecided. 

Denmark qualify for men’s football World Cup

A tight 1-0 win over Austria at Parken stadium in Copenhagen was all Denmark’s men’s team needed last night to seal qualification to next winter’s World Cup in Qatar.

Denmark qualified with two matches still to play in their group, becoming one of the first European teams to secure their spot at the tournament. They have won eight games out of eight and scored 27 goals without conceding so far during the qualification phase.

Such outstanding form is enough to create optimism that the team can continue to build on this year’s memorable run to the semi-finals of the European Championships.

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TODAY IN DENMARK

Today in Denmark: a roundup of the news on Wednesday

Støjberg attacks Rasmussen for relaxing tough migration laws, Danish IT company declared bankrupt, 'no quick fix' for cancer waiting lists, and record number of foreigners came to work in Denmark in 2022. Here's some of the morning's news from Denmark.

Published: 29 March 2023 08:07 CEST
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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