Last Week in Denmark (03.04 - 10.04) Episode 13 Year 2
World food prices! Refugee cities, The end of SU for master, Shelter space
Editor HQ
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Ukraine HQ
Refugees
Temporary refugee cities: The ministry of integration, Mattias Tesfaye, wants to establish “Ukrainian cities” in Denmark, where Ukrainian refugees can live together for a period of time. The first one to be established is in Amager (Copenhagen) and it will host 330 refugees. Up to 40,000 Ukrainian refugees are expected in Denmark until Easter.
Others
Frozen assets: Two Russian billionaires have been sanctioned by the Danish authorities. One has 10.000 tons of steel in frozen assets (Alexei Mordashov, co-owner of travel company TUI) worth 50 million DKK. The other, 29 million DKK (Andrey Melnichenko, founder of Eurochem Group).
New European sanctions against Russia: There is a general ban on importing Russian coal, wood, chemicals and vodka into Europe. Also, Russian ships are no longer welcome in European ports.
15 Russian spies expelled from Denmark: 15 Russian diplomats have been asked to leave the territory of Denmark as they are suspected of engaging in spying activities.
Danish Politics HQ
The political game
A new episode from the “controversial relation between Enhedslisten and Russia”: When Søren Søndergaard (Enhedslisten speaker on EU) got asked by an SF politician in the Danish Parliament if Russia is a danger to Europe at the moment, he said “No”, making even the prime-minister to say “WHAT?”.
1st June Referendum: Unfortunately, only Danish citizens are allowed to vote for the referendum. If you are curious to see what it means to vote “yes” or “no” anyway, you can check out this website. Also, the initial question on the ballot got changed after pressure from the “NO-parties”. The wording now is “Do you vote yes or no for Denmark to participate in the European cooperation on security and defense by abolishing the EU defense reservation?”.
Reform commission: The group of experts tasked by the government to come up with reform proposals that will allow Denmark to stay as a welfare society in the future, made their first suggestions:
Drop the “high-grade requirement to enter university” that is today, by lowering the necessary average grade to 9. If a university has more eligible applicants than places, then the commission suggests an entrance exam.
Transform the SU for master students into loans and raise the possibility to borrow up to 12,500 DKK per month.
First reactions to the reform proposals
Against the idea of removing SU for master students: The social democrat government and the support parties.
The only party that announced its intention to support the reform is the Liberal Alliance.
No majority for the new welfare law: The government has a hard time finding the necessary majority in the Danish Parliament to pass the new welfare law. According to the finance minister, the idea of binding future governments to invest more in children and elderly care will have to be dropped.
New leadership at 3F: Henning Overgaard has been chosen as the new trade union boss, after an extraordinary congress in Odense. The new leader is from Esbjerg, is 50 years old and worked within the transport industry.
Danish Economy HQ
Jobs for cooks and waiters: The employers association HORESTA South Denmark which represents the businesses within hotels, restaurants and catering announced that they have a severe problem with finding employees.
World food prices: Unfortunately, the global price of food has increased 12,6% on average since the war started, making it the largest price increase since 1990. The world price of wheat and grains increased with 17,1%, while the vegetable oil price increased with 23,2%.
Record year for Danish patents: According to the European Patent Office (EPO), in 2021, they had 2642 Danish patent applications. This is 9,2% more than in 2020 and the highest number ever. Vestas (wind turbine manufacturer) filed 163 patent applications last year.
Consumers vs. Gift card companies: The Consumer Ombudsman (the protector of the consumer rights in Denmark) discovered that the company MBXP (gift cards Morebox and DenBedsteGave) was charging an illegal fee of 125 DKK. Now the company has to pay the money back.
Daily Life in Denmark HQ
Shelter space: The Danish Emergency Management Agency asked the municipalities to make an inventory of the shelters available in case of an attack on Danish soil. The last inventory was made 20 years ago. Some municipalities have shelters ready for all the locals while others barely have any place. Check out your municipality.
New climate report: In short, “We can still save the planet, but we are busy with other problems”. For that we need to cut world greenhouse emissions by 43% until 2030.
Center of Quantum Tech: Denmark aka the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen has been selected as location for the new NATO Center for Quantum Technologies.
Sport
FIFAe Nations Cup 2022: Denmark will host the e-sports gaming event between 27 and 30 July, this summer. 24 nations will compete for the title of having the best FIFA players in the world.
Local news
Slagelse: The municipality decided to allocate one million DKK yearly for beach cleaning. A bit weird coming from the same municipality that has to make serious cuts in spending. An expert calls idiotic the attempt to clean the beach.
Efficiency: 61 municipalities (out of a total of 98) decided to centralize together everything related to data privacy, into a GDPR center that will open this summer in Viborg. This should make it cheaper to uphold EU law and maintain data privacy for the citizens.