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TODAY IN DENMARK

Today in Denmark: A roundup of the news on Thursday

No extra booster dose, school to trial four-day week, PostNord to document failed deliveries, and mortgage arrears on the rise. Here are some of the main stories from Denmark.

Published: 2 February 2023 08:37 CET
Today in Denmark: A roundup of the news on Thursday
PostNord's postal workers are having to document their deliverioes in some areas of Copenhagen. Photo: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix

Covid-19: Denmark decides against additional booster this winter

No additional booster vaccination against Covid-19 will be offered this winter, the Danish Health Authority confirmed on Wednesday.

Together with an expert advisory group, the Health Authority has considered whether to offer vulnerable groups an extra booster vaccination against Covid-19 this winter.

People at higher risk of serious illness with the virus including those over the age of 85 will not be offered a further booster this winter, the authority has decided.

Denmark offered a booster in autumn 2022 to all people over the age of 50 and younger people considered vulnerable to the coronavirus.

The booster was backed up by data suggesting it improves protection against hospitalisation with Covid-19 by 74 percent, according to the Danish Health Authority.

Danish vocab: boosterstik – booster dose

Defense Minister hospitalised after dizzy spell

Denmark’s defense minister Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, was examined at the Rigshospitalet hospital in Copenhagen on Wednesday after a spell of dizziness and a headache.

“Fortunately, there is nothing serious to report and I am feeling well again,” Ellemann-Jensen said in a Facebook post. “I, therefore, expect to be back in work clothes again tomorrow, and then of course I will pay extra attention to my health in the near future.” 

On Monday, Ellemann-Jensen was in the  Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv together with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (S) and Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, with the three meeting the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyj.

Danish vocab: et ildebefindende – a malaise 

Danish school to trial four-day week

Pupils and teachers at Aalborg Cathedral School are to launch an experiment with a four-day week after the summer holidays, exchanging six days of their summer holidays for six Mondays off over the autumn term to see if it brings improved well-being. 

“We have been inspired by those workplaces which operate with four-day working weeks. Then we talked about whether we could do something similar, because there is a lot of pressure on both staff and students,” Christian Nielsen Warmin, the school’s headteacher, told the Danish broadcaster TV2. 

Danish vocab: bedre trivsel – improved well-being

PostNord to consider photo documentation of failed deliveries 

Denmark’s PostNord postal service is considering making postal workers document failed deliveries to reduce the level of customer complaints. 

The company’s CEO in Denmark, Peter Kjær Jensen, said he believed that it was rare for postal workers to claim to have tried to deliver a package without even visiting the property, but acknowledged that many people in Denmark felt angry when they receive a message about a failed delivery despite being home all day. 

“We have very few of these cases, but they do exist. And we have also had postmen who are not skilled enough, or who have misunderstood how parcels are delivered correctly,” he said. 

The company is currently trialling photo documentation in Stenløse, Ølstykke and Veksø, with postal workers required to take a photo of the package that has been delivered without direct customer contact in order to document the delivery, or take a picture of the building’s entrance to prove that they have visited.

“Customers will be able to access the image via our app if the package fails to be delivered,” Jensen said. 

Danish vocab: dygtig – skilled

Danish mortgage arrears increase as costs go up

A higher number of Danish homeowners are finding it difficult to meet the repayment schedule on their mortgages, new figures show.

Data from the interest organisation from banks, Finans Danmark, shows that the “arrears percent” or restanceprocent was 0.14 percent in the third quarter of 2022, a small increase compared to preceding quarters.

That means homeowners on average did not pay 1.4 kroner in every 1,000 kroner they were due to pay on their mortgages during the quarter.

It is understandable that late 2022 presented challenges for homeowners, an analyst said in comments to the Ritzau newswire.

Danish vocab: restanceprocent – the percentage of homeowners in arrears

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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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