New government to give tax break to commuters
Denmark's government has announced plans to increase the commuter tax deduction (befordringsfradrag) for the rest of the year to lessen the impact of high fuel prices caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. An average commuter stands to receive 2,300 kroner in increased deductions, the government estimated.
"It has been one of my top priorities in my first hours as Minister of Taxation and Growth to find a model for how we in the government can help the many Danes who commute to and from work every day to cope with the rising prices at the gas station," Jakob Engel-Schmidt said in a press release.
"I am therefore extremely pleased that we can already present a model that gives an ordinary commuter 2,300 kroner in tax relief, which they can use to fill up their car."
The tax break can be claimed by anyone who travels more than 24km to get to and from work a day, and can be claimed by those travelling by train, bus and bicycle as well as by car.
The government plans to increase the tax break by 89 øre per km and increase the rate for those travelling more than 120km by 45 øre.
Danish vocabulary: et fradrag – a rebate
Signs of cooling in Copenhagen property market
While apartment prices in Copenhagen continued to rise in May, there are signs that the red-hot housing market of recent months is starting to cool off, according to the latest report from Boligsiden.
In May, the average price per square meter of an apartment in Copenhagen rose to 76,076 kroner, a monthly increase of almost 1.1 percent. When adjusted for seasonal fluctuations, this is an increase of 0.7 percent.
"The lower rate of price increase may reflect that the Copenhagen cooperative apartment market is slowing down slightly, which is consistent with our expectation that the pace at which prices are rising will slow down from the summer of 2026," Daisy Hollen Dickmeiss, housing economist at Nykredit, wrote in a comment.
This is the lowest monthly increase in apartment prices in Copenhagen since May 2024, with average sales prices of apartments up 24.6 percent over the past year.
House prices have also increased in the past year, particularly in the municipalities around Aarhus and Copenhagen, such as Glostrup, west of Copenhagen, where house prices have risen by 25 percent in the past year.
Danish vocabulary: brandvarmt – red hot (literally "fire hot")
Man hospitalised in Nørrebro stabbing
A 33-year-old man is being treated in hospital after he was stabbed in Folkets Park in Nørrebro, Copenhagen on Wednesday evening. He is no longer considered in danger of losing his life.
Mads Østermark from the Copenhagen Police said on Thursday morning that police had yet to make any arrests in the case.
"It is not critical. We have finished our investigations at the scene, but have not yet made any arrests," he said.
Police have questioned witnesses but still do not know what happened to cause the incident.
Danish vocabulary: uden for livsfare – out of danger (of losing life)
Government parties drop plan to ease Danish citizenship rules for under-18s
Denmark's new government has no plans to push ahead with a proposal to make it easier for people under the age of 18 to obtain Danish citizenship, despite three out of four government parties pledging to do so in the election campaign.
The Green Left, Social Liberal and Moderate parties all campaigned in this year's election on a pledge to allow people under the age of 18 to obtain Danish citizenship without having to be included in a citizenship bill passed by parliament.
But the proposal was not included in the government programme announced along with the new government last Tuesday.
"It is one of the things we have had to give up. That is clear," Magnus Georg Jensen, immigration spokesperson for the Social Liberal party, told the Politiken newspaper. "It was our policy in the past and now we have joined a government where we have not been able to get it included [in the government programme]. We must accept that."
Kirsten Normann Andersen, citizenship spokesperson for the Green Left Party, said that the issue had been a Social Democrat red line in the government negotiations.
"I was not involved in the negotiations, but all four government parties had some red lines. This was one of the red lines for one of the parties. And that's why it wasn't included," she told Politiken.
Young people under the age of 18 used to be able to obtain Danish citizenship automatically by a simple declaration, but now the only way for them to obtain it is to be included in one of the Danish government's sporadic citizenship bills.
You also need to have a permanent residence permit, to have passed a citizenship test, to have nine years of uninterrupted legal residence in Denmark and to have been in full-time work for a long period.
Denmark's Fair Statsborgerskab campaign has long been pushing for the requirements for young citizenship applicants to be lowered.
Danish vocabulary: at give afkald på – to give up, renounce, relinquish
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