Last Week in Denmark (11.09 - 18.09) Episode 31 Year 2
First award for our newsletter; Postpone payments on energy bills
Editor HQ
Dear LWID family,
Thanks to your nominations we have received the “International Award North Denmark 2022” prize from International House North Denmark. Our work for the past year and 9 months has been recognized :). So far, we have 20.000 people in our family, but we can definitely do better. Our mission is to empower the 11% (the internationals) with information and for that we need to reach as many people as possible with our platform.
Call to action: If you think more internationals should be reading this newsletter, please consider becoming our ambassador for a day. Your role? Spread the word about us to fellow internationals and help them sign up.
If you have access to a printer and don’t mind taking some flyers with you, you can download the file from here.
Danish Politics HQ
New laws and strategies
New agreement for teacher education: A broad political majority agreed to a series of measures to improve the teacher education. Why? Too few people apply to become teachers and out of those who apply many drop out before graduation. The new version of teacher education will be implemented from August 2023. What to expect? More teaching hours, a longer internship period, more guidance, more practice-based teaching (class management, inclusion, school-home cooperation) and more simplified teaching.
32 million DKK from the tobacco industry to clean up cigarette butts: An executive order from the Ministry of Environment obliges cigarette manufacturers to pay 32 million DKK yearly to the municipalities for clean-up of cigarette butts from 2023.
Cigarette butts are bad for the climate. They dissolve after 10 years of lying on the ground into microplastics and leave behind heavy metals (lead and cadmium), tar substances and nicotine. They are also the most common waste present in nature.
The parliamentary elections 2022
Radikale Venstre ultimatum for Mette Frederiksen: If Mette Frederiksen continues with her plans to send the asylum seekers to Rwanda, then Radikale Venstre will not point towards her as prime minister after the parliamentary elections.
However, it is important to mention that both Konservative and Venstre, the main parties from the blue side, also support the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, so a blue government will not change anything on this matter.
Radikale Venstre is willing to consider supporting a blue government if they will renounce the plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Enhedslisten and SF also do not support the idea of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, but are not willing to go as far as Radikale Venstre.
No place for Radikale Venstre into a blue government: The leader of the Conservatives, Søren Pape Poulsen refuses to consider allowing Radikale Venstre to join a “blue” government run by him. He says after 30 years of being a “red” party they will not feel at home in the blue camp.
Søren Pape Poulsen divorced his husband: After the media exposed the different alleged lies told by Josue Medina Vasquez (Søren’s husband), the couple decided to divorce. Søren Pape Poulsen wants to become prime minister of Denmark and for that he decided to make some personal sacrifices, like his marriage. However it might be too late as his credibility has already decreased from 49% to 31% .
Mette Frederiksen is the most trusted leader with 32%, followed by Pia Olsen Dyhr (leader of SF) with 31% and Alex Vanopslagh (leader of Liberal Alliance) with 30%.
Will there be a green party in the Parliament?: The three green parties are under the 2% they need to enter the Danish Parliament. After Alternativet called for a union of the green parties under their flag, Green Alliance answered positively and are currently negotiating a merger. The Free Greens refused and as a consequence, one of the founders (which is also the founder of Alternativet) Uffe Elbæk resigned and returned to Alternativet. There is pressure on Sikandar Siddique, the leader of the Free Greens to join the union of green parties from civil society organizations like Green Student Movement (Den Grønne Studenterbevægelse).
Law proposals
Postpone the payment for your energy bill: The government proposed a loan scheme that will allow you to postpone part of the payment for your energy bill over the next five years. You can pay later the part of your bill that is over the price level from autumn 2021.
Price levels from autumn 2021: electricity (2.99 DKK/KwH), district heating (1.44 DKK/KwH), heat pumps (1.87 DKK/KwH) and gas (15.45 DKK / m3).
The loan scheme can be used over the next 12 months once it's approved in the Parliament.
The government is looking for a way to also include small and medium businesses into the loan scheme.
More initiatives will be presented in the following weeks.
Tax the energy companies: Following the call from the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Enhedslisten and SF are asking for a special tax on the “abnormal” high profits of the energy companies.
Experiment with city guards: The government proposed a law that will allow municipalities to hire city guards into an experiment for the next three years to see if it will increase safety. The city guards will not be able to impose sanctions like giving fines or taking someone into custody. Their purpose will be to supplement the police work by patrolling certain areas considered less safe.
Danish Economy HQ
Inflation reached 8,9% in August: Life in Denmark got more expensive compared to last year. Unfortunately, the wage increases do not keep up with the price increases and for many people this means a worse personal economy. Use the calculator at the end of this article to see how much your salary should increase to keep up with the inflation.
Denmark is still okay in terms of inflation compared to other EU states. The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) experience inflation over 20%. The other Eastern European states experience inflation over 13%. Only France has a better situation with inflation (6,8%).
Hard times for bakeries and village grocery stores: Almost 200 grocery stores in rural areas are expected to be closed over the winter due to the high price on electricity and heat. The same with the bakeries. Many have been closed already, others are following.
Village grocery stores represent the lifeblood of the small towns. When the last shop closes, those towns disappear as it becomes incredibly hard to attract new people there.
For the bakers, it’s not only the energy prices that are problematic, but also the prices of raw materials like butter and flour. Now it’s the best time to support your local bakery.
The aconto bills for gas: Evida (Denmark’s gas distributor) sends aconto bills based on the consumption measured last year. So even if you are now reducing consumption like crazy it will not be reflected into your bill until the annual measurement. A lot of political parties are now asking the government to intervene as the aconto bills are so high that are threatening the people’s personal finances, despite their efforts to reduce consumption. The government promised a solution.
Daily Life in Denmark HQ
Fewer Christmas lights this year: To save energy, large department stores like Salling have decided to not decorate the outside facade with Christmas lights. Others are considering doing the same. Clearly the walks in town this Christmas will look different than other years.
Sunflower pellets: The 100.000 households in Denmark that use wood pellets for heating have started to look into alternatives. Wood pellets are hard to find and their price went from 1.600 DKK to 7.000 DKK. An alternative found is the much cheaper sunflower pellets which are made from compressed shells from sunflower seeds.
Sunflower pellets need a higher burning temperature and leave more ash behind. It is recommended to mix them with wood pellets, 50/50. You should test them before buying tones with the wood pellets you have at home.
Your fireplace might not be approved to use sunflower pellets. If a fireplace is installed after January 2015 then you can only use approved fuels that the manufacturer has tested. If the fireplace is from before 2015, then it is not illegal to burn sunflower pellets.
Horsemeat: As the price of meat has increased severely, people have started to look at alternative types of meat that are cheaper. One such type of meat is horsemeat, which has become so demanded at the butcher shops that a rationing has been put in place. Horsemeat is usually grounded together with beef to get the best taste.
According to the Danish Butchers Association this is a positive development. In the past, the dead horses will simply be destroyed. It is more sustainable to eat the horses.
Experts predict that once the price of horsemeat will reach the other more traditional types of meat, people will look into rabbit meat as a cheaper alternative.
Ukrainian soldiers will come to Denmark for military training: Denmark and Ukraine agreed to have Ukrainian soldiers train in Denmark in especially operations like demining. Denmark has trained Ukrainian soldiers in the United Kingdom this year.
Sport with Jelimir Vlastici
One of Italy's biggest teams, Lazio, had an unpleasant experience on Thursday evening when they played against FC Midtjylland in the Europa League. The Italians left Denmark disappointed after losing 5-1. While the result represents one of the best performances in FC Midtjyllands history, for Lazio it is a gloomy low point. In order to make amends for the 225 fans who traveled from Italy to central Jutland, SS Lazio made a statement shortly after the game that it will refund the ticket costs. The next round in the Europa League group stage takes place on the 6th of October, when FC Midtjylland meet Feyenoord at home.
Rikke Mæng Ibsen can now call himself the European champion in the 3x50-meter pistol, and thus it is certain that there will be a Danish shooter at the Olympics in 2024. In the final, the Dane was rock solid against the 19-year-old Czech Veronika Blazickova. Moreover, on Friday afternoon, Stephanie Grundsøe and Steffen Olsen secured a set of bronze medals at the European championships in the 50-meter rifle mixed teams. The victory came after a 17-9 victory over Ukraine.
European Union HQ
Sweden will have a blue prime minister: The parliamentary elections in Sweden gave the victory to the blue side (the right wing parties) who have 3 more seats than the red side. The social democrat prime minister Magdalena Andersson has resigned. However, there will be a long time before a blue government will be formed as the center-right leader Ulf Kristersson will need to find a balance between the nationalist extremists (Swedish Democrats) and the christian-democrats and liberals.
Hungary is no longer a democracy: The European Parliament approved a report that concludes Hungary’s decay from democracy to “electoral autocracy”. European values are under systemic threat in Hungary. Pressure is now on the European leaders to take a decision regarding the future of Hungary in the European Union.