Last Week in Denmark (18.09 - 25.09) Episode 32 Year 2
Winter aid, Flying tax, Spanish edition
Editor HQ
Dear LWID family,
Several of you have asked us over the years to make a Spanish edition of our newsletter. Finally, we can announce the first step towards making that a reality. Establishing a team. One of our loyal readers, Maria Fuentes has decided to take the lead on that and organize such a team. Therefore, if you are interested in translating from English to Spanish, proofreading the Spanish newsletter, or promoting our new language edition to the Spanish-speaking community, send an email to Maria (Mariafuentesf1@gmail.com)
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
Winter aid: A majority of the Danish Parliament (without four parties - DF, Nye Borgerlige, Liberal Alliance, and Free Greens) has agreed to spend 5 billion DKK on measures to support the population to survive the energy crisis.
A one-time increase of child allowance with 660 DKK in January 2023.
Temporary decision to lower the electricity tax to the EU's minimum level 0,8 øre / Kwh for the first six months of 2023. For an average consumption of 2000 Kwh is roughly 1.700 DKK less.
Households and Businesses can postpone part of the payment for electricity, gas, and district heating bills that exceeds the amount paid in autumn 2021. You have five years to pay your debt with a 2% interest rate. Businesses have four years to pay the debt with an interest rate of 4,4%.
People that use wood pellets to warm up the house will find them on the market. The government ensures that.
250 million DKK for 2022-2023 to increase the speed of connecting houses to district heating.
Financial support to disconnect from the gas network.
A permanent reduction of the electricity tax for heat pumps from 2024.
Reduction of electricity tariffs via bottleneck revenues.
Municipality taxes: The biggest part of your income tax is represented by the municipality tax (which varies across Denmark, from 22,8% in Frederiksberg to 26,3% in Svendborg). From 2023, 5 municipalities are planning to reduce the municipality tax (Copenhagen, Ballerup, Egedal, Fredericia, and Læsø) and 14 municipalities are planning to increase it (Frederiksberg, Odense, Hjørring, Rebild, Hedensted, Lemvig, Vejen, Vordingborg, Slagelse, Glostrup, Køge, Allerød, Furesø, and Fanø).
The government will not intervene to ensure that all the public schools reflect the diversity of the population. The municipalities will have to ensure that if they are able to. Therefore, the model of distribution based on the parent’s income enforced on the gymnasiums will not be introduced at a folkeskoler level.
The parliamentary elections 2022
The middle ground (small and unaffiliated parties)
Moderaterne (former prime minister Lars Løkke’s party) proposed a tax reform if they will be part of the next government. First they want to raise the top tax limit to 670.000 DKK (from 544.800 DKK today) and after a couple of years remove it completely. At the same time, they want to introduce a payroll tax of 3,2% for salaries over 352.000 DKK per year (for the companies). Also, to remove the personal allowance (person fradrag - 46.600 DKK untaxed income) for the richest 5% of the population. (at 3,3% in the opinion polls, they stand to get 6 seats)
Green Alliance (former Vegan Party) merged with Alternativet. Sikandar Siddique’s Free Greens are still against the idea of joining Alternativet. The Green Alliance (made from the union between the Vegans and the Greens) existed for 18 days. (Alternativet is at 1,2% in opinion polls - 0,8% from getting into the Parliament. Free Greens are at 1%)
The red camp (the left-wing parties)
Troubles between the social democrats and the social liberals (Radikale Venstre): Mette Frederiksen cannot get a new mandate as prime minister without the support of all the red parties. However, the relationship with Radikale Venstre turned cold, after the social liberals gave two ultimatums to Mette: she must call for elections on the 4th of October the latest and she needs to give up on the idea to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The ultimatum method used by Radikale Venstre is not welcomed by the population as their support is dropping (at 4,6% now), while the support for the social democrats is rising (at 25,4% now).
The social democrats proposed to replace the SU for social and health education students with an actual wage. Their income would increase by roughly 7.000 DKK more per month. They hope this way more people will choose to take a SOSU education.
The municipalities are asking the government to intervene with financial support to coverthe extra costs caused by inflation. The government declined to offer support. The municipalities threatened that they will be forced to fire public employees and lower the quality of the welfare services if the government doesn’t intervene.
The blue camp (the right-wing parties)
Even if their leader, Morten Messerschmidt is hesitant to admit it, the members of DF want Søren Pape Poulsen as the new prime minister of Denmark. (at 1,9% in the opinion polls now, high chance to not enter the Parliament, which will affect the blue camp)
At the same time, DF 2.0, Inger Støjberg DD’s party decided to be friends again with her old party, Venstre and point towards the leaders of the liberals, Jakob Ellemann-Jensen as the new prime minister of Denmark (at 10,8% now, the support dropped with 1% since last month).
In the blue camp, the game of thrones is in full swing with Ellemann and Pape both courting the other blue parties for support. The scandals around Søren Pape and the Conservative’s plan to fire 40.000 public employees has scared some voters away, as the support declined with 3,3% to 13,4%. Some of the voters switched to Jacob Ellemann and Venstre which increased their support by 0,6% to 11,9%.
Law proposals
Flight tax: The government proposed a 13 DKK tax for a plane ticket, regardless of the destination from 2025. Why? To gather 1,8 billion DKK for development of green technologies so that all the Danish domestic airplanes fly climate-neutral from 2030. How? Power-to-X technology which converts electricity from wind turbines into liquid green fuel for airplanes.
Radikale Venstre says the amount is too small and too late introduced. Enhedslisten asked for a 125 DKK tax on domestic flights. SF proposed a 100 DKK tax on domestic flights and up to 700 DKK on intercontinental flights.
Besides Denmark, only Cyprus, Ireland and Malta do not have a flight tax in the European Union.
Danish Economy HQ
Cut 25 billion DKK in public spending: To stop inflation, the government needs to reduce public spending by 25 billion DKK next year or to increase taxes on the population to reduce consumption, according to the director of the Danish National Bank. Otherwise, the inflation will further increase by 4,3% next year, the housing prices will fall 5,6% and the economy will slow down.
The government is willing to reduce public spending by 2,5 billion DKK only. They are not willing to entertain any further austerity. Following the advice of the National Bank could lead to a severe increase in unemployment.
People in Denmark are worried about the economy. In fact, they have the lowest trust in the economy in 48 years. They don’t think that better times are coming. However, Denmark is in a really good place. Record high employment, low unemployment, companies are still hiring, the personal savings in bank accounts are high and the inflation didn’t lower the consumption. However, people are worried because they earn less than before.
More expensive district heating: According to the director of Dansk Fjernvarme (district heating association), if Denmark and the European Union introduce a price ceiling to electricity (a maximum price possible) and a special tax on revenues made by the electricity producing companies then there will be a higher heating bill for the 1,8 million district heating customers. Why? District heating associations also produce electricity and the income from selling electricity has allowed them to keep the heating bills for customers low.
As a customer of a publicly owned district heating association you are in a privileged position. The average yearly heating cost is at 13.000 DKK while the average heating cost for a gas heated house is at 56.700 DKK.
Life at 75 DKK per day: Despite inflation, Diana Stouby’s family of five from Skive uses 75 DKK daily on food. How? You need to become a “tilbud” (offer) hunter and get mad planning skills.
She makes weekly meal plans and uses the tilbud newspapers and apps. The family cooks for several days at once.
She buys goods that are almost expired as their price usually drops by 50%. Then she uses the freezer to keep them until they are needed.
Looking for offers is a national sport in Denmark as 50% of the population does it.
Many bus routes will be closed, if the government doesn’t increase their 125 million grant to 786 million. Why? Few people travelled with the bus during the pandemic years and the high fuel price this year. The public transport companies are on minus with 786 million DKK. The ministry of transport is not interested in sending more money if the number of bus passengers remains low in the following months.
Daily Life in Denmark HQ
Do you have a chronic illness and are an early pensioner? Lawyers give advice on how to answer tricky questions of pension companies and avoid losing money. Every year pension companies evaluate early pensioners on their physical state through a survey that often lacks space for elaboration and leads to incorrectly answered questions. The pension companies can investigate and if it finds lies, people can lose their pension.
New proposal on the table for young hash smokers. Treatment instead of a fine. An addiction expert claims that fines do not stop young people from smoking hashish but what can help is a professional treatment. Enhedslisten, SF, Radikale and Nye Borgerlige support the idea while the Liberal Alliance and the Danish People's Party are among the opponents.
Mink farms are coming back! The temporary ban on mink farms expires with the end of the year and the government will not be extending it. Instead, after advice from the health authorities, talks will be held to review the current model of the mink industry - says says Rasmus Prehn (Socialdemocrats). The expectations are that only a few mink breeders will resume operations.
Sport with Jelimir Vlastici
Gog managed to draw against Dinamo Bucharest. On Thursday evening, the Danish handball champions, Gog, faced Dinamo in the 2nd round of the EHF Champions League. Gog had a 6-goal lead in the 36th minute (27:21) but at the end were lucky to save a point against the Romanian team 38:38 who didn’t get to score in the last attack of the match. This was the highest-scoring draw in the history of the competition, with no other game having two teams scoring at least 38 goals each and finishing in a deadlock. In group A after the first two rounds, the Danes position themselves third with 3 points. The next game they will face in the Champions League will be against Wisla Plock.
Aalborg easily beat Elverum in the anniversary match. The Scandinavian derby in group B of the EHF Champions League was mostly one-sided – and Aalborg Håndbold came away with a clear 33:25 over Elverum Handball on Wednesday. Aalborg's 100th match in the Champions League earned them their second victory of the season, while Elverum lost for a second time. In group B, Aalborg are leading the table, having the same amount of points as Barcelona, 4. Aalborgs next game will be at home against Lomza Kielce on the 28 September from 20:45.