The Week That Was October 5th – October 11th 2020:
Coronavirus/ What happened last week:
The nationwide restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the corona virus have worked, Health Minister Magus Heunicke said on Friday after the latest figures showed 331 new infections over the previous 24 hours, the lowest for nearly three weeks.
The mass slaughter of mink at farms in Jutland scheduled for Wednesday was postponed because the health authorities failed to come up with a financial compensation agreement for breeders.
Politicians, long seen as the least credible group of professionals in Denmark, have seen their favourability ratings increase slightly during the corona crisis.
Politics/Economy:
Social Liberal (Radikale) leader Morten Østergaard resigned on Wednesday after admitting he acted inappropriately at a party get together ten years ago – he was replaced by Sofie Carsten Nielsen who dismissed accusations of a cover-up in the sexual harassment affair. Leading political commentators said it was Morten Østergaard’s poor handling of the Social Liberals’ sexual harassment affair that cost him his job, not his hand on a fellow MP’s thigh.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Denmark’s first-ever female prime minister, said Denmark’s slowness in embracing the MeToo movement is a sign of the public’s complacency about sexual harassment.
In her opening speech to parliament Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen promised a crackdown on ‘criminal and intimidating’ non-western immigrant youths – the Institute of Human Rights warned that the ban on groups of threatening youths in public places could affect many people who have no bad intentions but just need somewhere to ‘hang out’.
The PM also promised a new holding centre for failed asylum seekers before summer next year but admitted that the government hasn’t yet found a suitable location and also pledged to spend DKK10bn ($1.58bn) over the next five years to speed up measures to cut CO2 emissions.
The opposition Liberals (V) expressed doubt about the government’s proposal to send asylum seekers to a processing centre outside the EU.
Conservative leader Søren Pape Poulsen’s increasing popularity was reflected in a new survey showing a majority of voters see him as the most popular opposition leader.
A weighted average of all recent opinion polls showed the Danish People’s Party (DPP), Denmark’s ‘traditional’ anti-migrant party, is neck and neck with the New Right (New Conservatives) who only entered parliament last year.
Pernille Skipper, titular head of the Red/Greens, has fallen foul of the party’s ‘rotation principle’ and will be forced to step down – according to the party’s own rule book no party MP can stand for re-election if they’ve held office for seven consecutive years.
Foreign Affairs/EU:
Iran’s ambassador to Denmark was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, Wednesday, after it was alleged that his embassy had told an Iranian woman her Danish divorce wasn’t legal – she was encouraged to seek a religious agreement drawn up by local imams instead.
Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod spoke on the phone with his Iraqi counterpart, Fouad Hussein, Tuesday, regarding the new Danish embassy in Baghdad – the two also discussed the US decision to shut down its Baghdad embassy, a step Iraqis fear could turn their country into a battle zone.
A woman claiming to be Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaja recently took part in a top-level virtual meeting of the Danish parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee.
Ex-prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen characterised the lawsuit launched against him by the now insolvent Latvian bank PNB as ‘highly unusual’ – according to Latvian media, as deputy chairman of the bank’s council the former NATO Secretary voted in favour of several transactions that were not in PNB’s interests.
The Danish and Indian authorities are working together to facilitate the deportation of Niels Holck, who’s wanted in India to face charges of dropping weapons from a plane to a sect in West Bengal in 1995.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen sent a ’get well soon’ message to Donald Trump after the US president was hospitalised with the corona virus.
According to a new survey, 36% of Americans believe Denmark is ‘completely socialist’ or ‘more socialist than capitalist’.
Denmark came in first in a comparison of high-speed broadband coverage throughout the Nordic/Baltic region.
Social Affairs:
As part of its move to clamp down on social control within the Muslim community the government is preparing a bill that could lead to a prison sentence for imams that get involved in divorce cases.
A 36-year-old Dane is facing a 20-year jail term in the U.S. state of New Jersey after being arrested and charged with embezzling over $550,000 (around DKK3m) from the company he worked for.
Business:
The future of Denmark’s oil and gas fields in the North Sea is in doubt after French giant Total withdrew from the latest licensing round, blaming the ‘lack of clarity’ surrounding the bidding process.
Danske Bank, still struggling with the aftershock of the money laundering scandal, announced plans to cut 1,600 jobs over the next 12 months.
Berlingske’s annual list of the top-100 businesses in this country showed shipping giant A.P.Moller-Maersk is still Denmark’s biggest company, followed by medicinal flagship Novo Nordisk.
Fund management company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners is preparing to pump billions of dollars of green investment into Asia as it focuses on the region for a new renewable energy fund.
Dankort (debit card) and MobilePay spending, normally a reliable indicator of consumer intentions, increased significantly at the start of the month.
Industrial production rose a seasonally adjusted 5.9 percent month-on-month in August, after a 5.8 percent fall in July.
Struggling Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) suffered a 73% drop in passenger figures in September compared to the same period last year.