Denmark's parliament is expected in the coming weeks to enact a bill bringing in a 50 percent increase to the cost of applying for Danish citizenship.
The bill is the result of a parliamentary agreement signed in June 2024 between the three government parties and the opposition Liberal Alliance, meaning it will pass easily after it has its first reading in parliament on February 27th.
This will rubber stamp an increase to the application fee for citizenship from the current 4,000 kroner to 6,000 kroner, and also bring in a new fee of 3,000 kroner for repeated applications. Applicants who were born in Denmark or arrived before they were 8 years old will pay a lower fee of 4,000 kroner.
When the deal was reached, Denmark's migration minister, Kaare Dybvad Bek, defended the increase as "only fair" , arguing that the new fee would "more closely reflect the costs that the Danish state actually has to process the cases".
As for the new fee for repeated applications, he said that this would deter frivolous attempts.
"The ministry has seen several examples of applicants applying many times and being rejected every single time. In my opinion, it is not right that people can apply again and again without paying," he said.
But Peder Hvelplund, immigration spokesperson for the far-left Red-Green Alliance, dismissed Dybvad Bek's justification for the increase.
"The real reason is not to cover the costs. The real reason is to add further difficulties for obtaining Danish citizenship," Hvelplund told The Local.
A 6,000 kroner fee, he pointed out, was already more than a five-fold increase from the fee a little over a decade ago, making the cost "really unfair" on applicants.
"There's a lot of other fees you have to pay as well," he added, complaining that applicants also had to pay for doctor's notes, for language and citizenship tests.
"It's important to remember that the citizenship is part of being a full member of Danish society, and that it brings the right to vote in parliamentary elections. So this is also an unfair fee for participating in democracy."
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Zenia Stampe, a spokesperson for the Social Liberal Party, agreed that the new law was just "another attempt to make it more difficult to apply for and acquire citizenship in Denmark", complaining that the new fee would be "way too high".
Instead of increasing fees to cover the cost of administering Denmark's complex citizenship requirements, she argued, the ministry could save costs by making citizenship automatic for anyone born in Denmark who reaches the age of 18 with no criminal record and who has passed their final exams at primary school level.
Hvelplund said that it was a shame that Denmark's Social Democrats now supported rather than opposed measures to make citizenship more difficult to obtain.
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"If we go back just 15 or 20 years, it was easier to oppose all the additional difficulties that they are putting in the way of obtaining citizenship. Often, we could rely on the Social Democratic Party, but today, the Social Democrats are almost as far-right as the far-right on the question of citizenship."
Hvelplund said that while he felt that the political rhetoric on immigration was changing in Denmark when it came to foreigners coming to the country to work, he had yet to perceive much of a shift on the question of citizenship.
"If you look at work permits, it's a question of 'can the society benefit from these people?' But in the question of citizenship, it is also a question of 'can a Muslim have the right to to vote in Denmark?'," he explained.
Among other criteria relating to financial self-sufficiency, employment history, length of stay, Danish language competency and criminal records, would-be citizens have to prove their knowledge of the Denmark's culture, history, politics and more by taking a citizenship test.
In April 2021, the previous version of the citizenship test, which consisted of 40 multiple choice questions, was supplemented with five extra questions about “Danish values” such as equality, freedom of speech and the relation between legislation and religion.
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