Last Week in Denmark (02.04 - 09.04) Episode 13 Year 3
Abortion rights; Organ donor; Shopping in Sweden
Editor HQ
Last Week in Denmark wishes you a “Happy Easter”, if you celebrate it today.
Opportunity: Join an e-learning platform made by AMIS (A More Inclusive Society) where you can follow an online course about entrepreneurship, communication, teamwork, and project management. You can try the course for free and get your certificate until April 15. Go to this link, choose “National Course - Denmark: Core course for final beneficiaries” and then create a new account.
If you made an account last week, you can now self-enroll into the course.
Sublet your room or your apartment for a month during the summer season for an Erasmus+ student: Are you planning to leave your room or apartment free for a whole month (from May to August)? Allow an Erasmus+ student to sublet it from you. They get to experience Denmark, you get your rent covered. If you are interested, complete this survey and we will call you :)
Call for curators to join our team: The English-edition of the newsletter is looking to expand the team that curates Danish media in search of valuable information for the internationals living here. If you are willing to invest a couple of hours weekly while making a name for yourself in a certain field, then please write to me (narcis1george@gmail.com).
Co-curator for the Danish Economics HQ - someone with interest and knowledge in finance, market trends, economy, etc.
Curators for the subcategories of Daily Life HQ - Healthcare, Education, Climate, Sports, Science
Curator for the “Internationals in Danish media” - someone willing to use a media scanner to extract the good stories of the week.
Danish Politics HQ
Law proposals and ideas
Abortion rights for 15-17 year olds without parental consent: Several political parties want to lower the minimum age for abortion without parental consent to 15.
According to Konservative, the age of consent is 15, and girls that age are already getting birth control pills without parental consent; they should also be allowed to decide about abortion.
Enhedslisten, SF and Moderaterne support the change. DF and Nye Borgerlige are against the idea.
Experts recommend that the minimum age for abortion follows the Health Act which states “young people aged 15 can give informed consent to treatment”
The government is waiting for the Ethics Council to come up with new recommendations on the question of abortion before proposing changes to it.
The organ donor debate: Today, you need to sign up to become an organ donor. The majority of the population in Denmark (64%) wants to change this model so that everyone becomes an organ donor automatically unless they opt out. 27% of the population over 15 years old in Denmark has signed up to be an organ donor.
Last summer, a citizen proposal that wanted to change the model was rejected in the Danish Parliament. However, after seeing that 460 people are waiting urgently for a new organ, the Minister of Health decided to re-open negotiations on the organ donor model.
Radikale Venstre supports the new model. Enhedslisten wants a model where every person over 15 is asked if they want to sign up as organ donors. Conservatives and the Ethics Council support the current model where you need to sign up. DF prefers that people are asked more often if they want to sign up instead of the automatic model.
Socialdemokratiet has not decided yet which model they would support, but they consider a model where it is a condition to sign up if you want a driving license for example. Moderaterne have also not decided yet. Venstre supports the automatic model with a condition - that relatives have the last word.
You can donate organs if your brain dies first (brain death) or if the heart stops beating (circulatory death).
The political arena
Focus on SF (Socialists): Since Socialdemokratiet (Social Democrats) decided to form a government with Venstre (Liberals) and Moderaterne, SF became the new leader of the “red opposition”. And it’s going really well for them, as most of the dissatisfied voters with the social democrats, go to SF.
The three main figures of the party are Pia Olsen Dyhr (the leader), Jacob Mark (the crown prince) and Karsten Honge (the old guard).
SF is courting the former social democrat voters, especially public employees and members of the trade unions. SF is trying to get closer to the trade unions.
SF wants to go into government after the next elections in 2026 (or maybe earlier).
SF needs to balance going after the social democrat voters with keeping a good relationship with the social democratic party leadership.
Danish Economy HQ
1900 bank accounts in 20 different Danish banks are going to be closed and the money seized by the state if the owners don’t show up to claim them by the 8th of May. How much? 18 million DKK. The money laundering law states that if a bank cannot identify the bank account owner based on name, address, and CPR number, then they must lock the account. If the owner still doesn’t show up after the account is locked for a year, the state will confiscate the money.
The richest man in Denmark is Anders Holch Povlsen (owner of Bestseller). He has a wealth of 7.3 billion dollars and is ranked 312 on the global wealth list. The second richest are the Kirk family (the owners of Lego), with a wealth of 6.7 billion dollars (ranking 365 on the wealth list). In total, 8 people from Denmark made it onto the Forbes Billionaires list.
The richest man in the world is the French Bernard Arnault (the owner of the cosmetic and fashion LVMH empire which has 75 brands like Louis Vuitton and Sephora) with a wealth of 211 billion dollars.
The richest woman in the world is the French Francoise Bettencourt Meyers (the owner of L’Oreal) with a wealth of 80.5 billion dollars.
30,977 available jobs advertised in March: Despite facing one crisis after another, the demand for labor in Denmark has not diminished. In fact, the demand is higher than before the pandemic started (20,000 job openings in March 2019).
Consumers from Denmark benefit from a cheap Swedish krona: As the value of the Swedish krona has fallen, tens of thousands of people from Denmark have started to do their shopping in Sweden, as they get more for their money.
Daily Life in Denmark HQ
Life expectancy is rising in Denmark: The average lifespan has increased in the last 20 years from 77.1 years in 2002 to 81.5 years in 2021. The common average lifespan in the European Union is 80.1 years. Only Estonia, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein have a higher average lifespan.
European Union HQ
Finland joins NATO as the 31st member state: The national parliaments of the 30 NATO member states have approved Finland’s application and welcomed it into the military alliance.
Finland shares a 1,340-km (832-mile) eastern frontier with Russia and after the war in Ukraine began Helsinki chose the protection of Nato's Article Five, which says an attack on one member is an attack on all.
Finland brings with it a well-equipped and well-trained, active armed force of about 30,000 with a wartime strength of 280,000.
Sanna Marin, the rockstar social democrat prime minister from Finland lost the parliamentary elections. The liberal-conservative party KOK has won the elections with 20.8% of the votes. The right-wing party Finns came in second place with 20.1%, and the social democrats were in third place with 19.9%.
The leader of KOK, Petteri Orpo has two difficult choices - to either make a government coalition with the Finns party to whom they differ on climate, immigration and EU membership or to make one with the social democrats as he wants to change the economic course. It will take some time before we see a new government in Finland.
Bulgaria had its fifth parliamentary election in the last two years: There has been a three-way fight between the old guard (Boyko Borisov conservative pro-europeans), the anti-corruption movement (Kiril Petkov liberal pro-europeans) and the pro-Russians (Revival; Bulgarian Rise; Neutral Bulgaria). The results are inconclusive and it will be once again very hard to form a coalition government.
25.29% (Boyko Borisov GERB-SDS); 23.55% (Kiril Petkov PP-DB); 13.6% (pro-Russian Revival); 13.1% (Turkish minority party); 8.6% (Social Democrats); 4% (Slavi Trifonov’s populist party); 2.95% (pro-Russian Bulgarian Rise); 2.1% (Socialists); 0.4% (pro-Russian Neutral Bulgaria).
International media about Denmark HQ
How progressive Denmark became the face of the anti-migration left (Washington Post).
Denmark mobilizes aid for Ukraine, cuts its dependence on Russian gas.