Today in Denmark: A roundup of the news on Monday
Government considering restricting Quran burnings, unemployment slightly down and one in ten young people don’t want children. Here’s the news from Denmark on Monday.
Government considering limit on Quran burnings
The Danish government said yesterday evening it would explore legal means of stopping protests involving the burning of holy texts in certain circumstances.
Several recent protests involving desecrations of the Quran have raised diplomatic tensions throughout the Middle East and Denmark and Sweden, where the Quran has also been burned by demonstrators.
Although the burnings are broadly disliked in Denmark, banning them would be a significant step given the country’s long-standing stance that they are allowed under free speech rights.
Conservative parties have already raised concern about the potential move. Conservative Party leader Søren Pape Poulsen told broadcaster DR “we are compromising on things that I’m concerned about where they’ll end”.
The protests continued during the weekend with five burnings at embassies in Copenhagen and seven more planned on Monday according to DR.
We’ll update this story as it develops, with the government scheduled to present its proposal in full to the other parliamentary parties later today.
Vocabulary: forhindre – prevent
READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: Why are demonstrators in Denmark burning the Quran again?
One in ten in Denmark don’t want children, survey finds
Just under one in ten young people in Denmark don’t want to have children according to a study by the Rockwool Foundation, reported by newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad.
Some 7,500 men and women born between 1971 and 2003 were asked how many children they want to have or how many they would like to have had.
Of those born between 1999 and 2003, 8.8 percent said their preferred number of children was zero.
According to Statistics Denmark, the fertility rate in the country in 2022 was the lowest for 35 years.
Vocabulary: barnløs – childless
Homeowners keep up with mortgage payments amid high interest
The vast majority of homeowners are still pay their mortgage repayments on time despite rising costs related to the increasing interest rates.
An analysis by Finans Danmark up to the first quarter of this year shows that 99.85 percent of mortgages are still paid on time.
High employment and savings have helped homeowners to guard themselves against rising costs, an analyst said.
“Additionally… enthusiasm for loaning against the equity has been low. Mortgages on Danish homes have actually shrunk by over 50 billion kroner over the last year,” senior economist Jeppe Juul Borre of Arbejdernes Landsbank told news wire Ritzau.
Vocabulary: friværdi – equity
Unemployment down for first time in eight months
Unemployment has been slowly creeping upwards since the start of the year but that trend was broken in June, when the number of unemployed went down by about 300 according to new Statistics Denmark figures.
The total unemployed was thereby around 82,000 in June.
“It’s incredibly impressive all round that unemployment is still so low when you think about the drastic shock the economy has been subjected to as a result of the inflation crisis and war in Ukraine,” head economist with trade union Dansk Metal, Erik Bjørksted, said to Ritzau.
Vocabulary: voldsomme chok – drastic shocks
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Government considering limit on Quran burnings
The Danish government said yesterday evening it would explore legal means of stopping protests involving the burning of holy texts in certain circumstances.
Several recent protests involving desecrations of the Quran have raised diplomatic tensions throughout the Middle East and Denmark and Sweden, where the Quran has also been burned by demonstrators.
Although the burnings are broadly disliked in Denmark, banning them would be a significant step given the country’s long-standing stance that they are allowed under free speech rights.
Conservative parties have already raised concern about the potential move. Conservative Party leader Søren Pape Poulsen told broadcaster DR “we are compromising on things that I’m concerned about where they’ll end”.
The protests continued during the weekend with five burnings at embassies in Copenhagen and seven more planned on Monday according to DR.
We’ll update this story as it develops, with the government scheduled to present its proposal in full to the other parliamentary parties later today.
Vocabulary: forhindre – prevent
READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: Why are demonstrators in Denmark burning the Quran again?
One in ten in Denmark don’t want children, survey finds
Just under one in ten young people in Denmark don’t want to have children according to a study by the Rockwool Foundation, reported by newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad.
Some 7,500 men and women born between 1971 and 2003 were asked how many children they want to have or how many they would like to have had.
Of those born between 1999 and 2003, 8.8 percent said their preferred number of children was zero.
According to Statistics Denmark, the fertility rate in the country in 2022 was the lowest for 35 years.
Vocabulary: barnløs – childless
Homeowners keep up with mortgage payments amid high interest
The vast majority of homeowners are still pay their mortgage repayments on time despite rising costs related to the increasing interest rates.
An analysis by Finans Danmark up to the first quarter of this year shows that 99.85 percent of mortgages are still paid on time.
High employment and savings have helped homeowners to guard themselves against rising costs, an analyst said.
“Additionally… enthusiasm for loaning against the equity has been low. Mortgages on Danish homes have actually shrunk by over 50 billion kroner over the last year,” senior economist Jeppe Juul Borre of Arbejdernes Landsbank told news wire Ritzau.
Vocabulary: friværdi – equity
Unemployment down for first time in eight months
Unemployment has been slowly creeping upwards since the start of the year but that trend was broken in June, when the number of unemployed went down by about 300 according to new Statistics Denmark figures.
The total unemployed was thereby around 82,000 in June.
“It’s incredibly impressive all round that unemployment is still so low when you think about the drastic shock the economy has been subjected to as a result of the inflation crisis and war in Ukraine,” head economist with trade union Dansk Metal, Erik Bjørksted, said to Ritzau.
Vocabulary: voldsomme chok – drastic shocks
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