The Week That Was, November 30th – December 6th 2020:

Coronavirus/ What happened last week:

The positivity rate of corona testing rose to 2.06% as the number of daily infections topped 1,600 – health experts warned of the growing threat to hospital capacity.

The government tightened corona restrictions, primarily targeting 17 local authorities in the capital region where the infection rate is the highest in the country.

A new study showed 8 out of 10 people in Denmark are ready, and willing, to be vaccinated against covid-19 as soon as a vaccine is finally approved, the highest rate of positivity in eight EU countries surveyed.

Politics/Economy:

The minkgate scandal hasn’t affected the Social Democrats’ popularity – a new Megafon poll for TV2 showed the ruling party would win more than 30% of the vote if an election was held today.

In the latest twist to the scandal the government is considering the possibility of digging up millions of dead mink that have started to ‘rise from the grave’ in some places.

The government and a cross-party political majority agreed to pay out the final portion of wage-earners’ frozen holiday funds to give the economy a DKK24bn ($3.6bn) boost and, hopefully, create 5,000 short-term jobs.

Health Minister Magnus Heunicke was given a parliamentary reprimand for his role in the minkgate scandal after a hearing heard how he was briefed about a possible corona mutation in mink and the potential threat to public health on September 22nd but failed to immediately inform parliament.

The economy bounced back with record 4.9% GDP growth in the year’s third quarter (Q3) compared to Q2 – despite the impressive figures, Statistics Danmark noted that the economy shrank by 4.1 percent overall in the first three quarters of 2020 compared with the same period last year – in its 2021 Economic Outlook, published Tuesday, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) projected that the Danish economy is projected to contract by around 4% in 2020, followed by a gradual recovery of nearly 2% in 2021 and 2½ per cent in 2022.

As part of a return to the hardline anti-immigrant policy that made it the biggest party on the right five years ago the Danish People’s Party (DPP) proposed deporting the whole family of criminal immigrants.

Liberal leader Jakob Ellemann-Jensen expressed hope that his predecessor, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, runs at the next election and continues to play a significant role within the party after the former prime minister claimed his party no longer have any use for him.

A parliamentary majority agreed to put and end to all oil and gas exploration and extraction in the North Sea by 2050 as part of the government’s ambition for climate neutrality the same year.

The State Prosecutor’s Office for Serious Economic and International Crime (SØIK), popularly known as the fraud squad – received 42,212 reports of possible money laundering or terror financing in the first nine months of this year – more than all of last year (40,985) and, potentially, twice as many as 2018 (26,400).

56-year-old Flemming Lentfer officially took over as Chief of the Danish Armed Forces, Tuesday, replacing Bjørn Bisserup who’s taken early retirement following a series of scandals in the military.

Foreign Affairs/EU:

Pro-democracy activist Ted Hui, who arrived in Copenhagen on Tuesday under the cover of holding meetings on climate change but spent three days talking to lawmakers about the Chinese government’s crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong, left Denmark on Friday heading for exile in the UK.  Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of the semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies and a senior advisor to Beijing, said the Danish government furthered Denmark-China relations by declining to meet Ted Hui during his trip to Copenhagen.

Berlingske’s security policy correspondent, Kristian Mouritzen, said U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Carla Sands is seen by Danish politicians as ‘extremely annoying’ and, like President Trump, has never been trained in diplomacy, but when she leaves Denmark early next year she’ll remembered for one thing – constantly reminding Danes that they need to spend more on defence.

Foreign embassies in Copenhagen have run up DKK150,00 (€20,000) in unpaid parking tickets and there’s little the authorities can do to collect the money.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Kim Kielsen is no longer leader of his own Siumut party after losing a run off with challenger Erik Jensen, Sunday.

Denmark contributed an extra DKK60m (€8m) to the north Ethiopian state of Tigray where the escalating conflict has driven tens of thousands of refugees from their homes.

During a flying visit to Denmark, ex U.S. ambassador Rufus Gifford said Joe Biden is facing a big job when he enters the White House on January 20th to clean up after Donald Trump, especially in terms of foreign policy.

Social Affairs:

A Bornholm court sentenced two brothers to 14 years in prison each for the murder of a black man on the island in June – the court heard how they beaten him with a wooden pole and a bottle, stabbed him with a knife and pressed a knee against his neck, disturbingly similar to what happened to George Floyd in the USA – leading to accusations by Black Lives Matter Denmark that the killing could have been provoked by racism.

New Statistics Denmark figures showed the average person in this country earned just over DKK20,000 ($3,000) a month after tax last year.

Four of five men charged with receiving kickbacks in the Defence Ministry procurement affair were found guilty by Viiborg District Court.

Business:

Green energy giant commissioned the world’s second-largest offshore wind farm, ‘Borssele’ in the North Sea, off the Dutch coast, one day before it was hit with a DKK6.6bn ($1bn) tax demand from the Danish Tax Agency who claim the company should be taxed on the income it receives from two British wind farms despite the fact that they are developed, owned, and operated by British subsidiaries of the Ørsted group and are already taxed in the UK.

And That Was the Week That Was, November 30th – December 6th 2020: To read all the above articles in full see: http://seven59.dk/archive (subscription required).