The Week That Was, January 16th – January 22nd 2017

Posted on 22. Jan, 2017 in: TWTW

Politics/Economy

A new voter migration study revealed the Danish People’s Party (DPP) is losing support at an alarming rate – 41,000 DPP voters have crossed over to the Social Democrats in the wake of the EU fraud scandal, while 21,000 have moved sideways to the Liberals and 45,000 to the right-wing, anti-immigrant New Conservatives.

The DPP came out against a new bill that would block access to websites promoting terrorist propaganda as it would also block sites that violate the Racial Discrimination Act, which the party has long been opposed to.

Integration Minister Inger Støjberg said local authorities won’t be permitted to defy the government by unilaterally offering shelter to UN quota refugees, in response to a request from Social Democrats in the Copenhagen district of Frederiksberg.

A new financial disclosure list of cabinet ministers’ personal financial affairs revealed Business Minister Brian Mikkelsen is the wealthiest.

A new international report showed Denmark is the fifth-best country in the world at creating economic growth and at the same time ensuring social inclusion and reducing financial inequality – Denmark was ranked 5th on World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2017, published to coincide with the Davos summit.

A new report by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gave Denmark low marks for its poor efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing and also criticised the ‘inadequate’ supervision of the financial sector.

The Danish People’s Party’s Finn Rudaizky told Copenhagen District Court he leaked confidential information about slain terrorist Omar El-Hussein to the press because Copenhagen City Hall was ‘involved in a cover-up’.

A government proposal to give toddlers as young as one year of age democratic rights was dismissed as a ‘step too far’ by children’s rights organisations.

Foreign Affairs/EU

A broad, cross-party majority in parliament agreed to honour the pledge to spend at least 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on foreign development aid for the next five years – the Foreign Ministry’s new, ‘robust dialogue’ strategy stated  aid will in future be used as a tool to put pressure on recipient countries who refuse to accept failed asylum seekers.

Ahead of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) summit in Davos Finance Minister Kristian Jensen urged Danish business leaders to fight for globalisation, free trade, and technology.

Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen told parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee that Denmark voted no last year to a UN resolution on a unilateral nuclear weapons ban because a yes vote would have ‘threatened the solidarity of NATO’. Mr Samuelsen also claimed it’s historians who will ultimately decide whether Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Turks in 1915 –  just seven months after his Liberal Alliance party urged the Liberal government at the time to ignore any angry reaction from Turkey and officially acknowledge the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians.

A parliamentary majority demanded changes in the way the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg works – Justice Minister Søren Pape Poulsen said he agrees there’s a need to take a very critical look at the way the ECHR interprets the Human Rights Convention.

The government is planning a crackdown on foreign fighters with a new bill that will stop their social benefits – more than 30 IS (Islamic State) militants resident in Denmark are known to have continued to receive thousands of kroner in welfare handouts while fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said Denmark is ready to sign a free-trade agreement with the UK after his British counterpart, Therese May, made it clear that her country ‘cannot possibly’ remain within the European single market – Ms May’s warning of a ‘hard Brexit’ sent shockwaves through the Danish business sector, with a number of food and fishing companies, heavily reliant on the lucrative British market, warning they could relocate to the UK.

Justice Minister Søren Pape Poulsen travelled to Strasbourg, Tuesday, to lobby EU MEPs to approve Denmark’s Europol deal before the May 1st deadline when the cross-border police agency becomes a supranational body – he said it’s a ‘tight deadline’ but the government is doing everything within its power to prevent Denmark being excluded.

Ahead of his departure from Denmark, Friday, US Ambassador Rufus Gifford said whatever one thinks about what is happening in the United States it’s a fact that the same political tendencies already exist in Denmark.

US President Donald Trump’s claim that Germany’s Chancellor Merkel made ‘one very catastrophic mistake’ by admitting more than 1m migrants was echoed by the Danish People’s Party’s Martin Henriksen who said Ms Merkel more or less issued an open invitation to refugees, which ‘rubbed off’ on Denmark and was a ‘hostile gesture’ – (DPP) leader Kristian Thulesen said although Mr Trump doesn’t always say things in the most diplomatic manner it’s ‘refreshing’ to hear his straight talk. Former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he believes the new president has the potential to ‘stabilise American politics and rebuild confidence in US political leadership over the next few years’.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Danish ambassador over an attack on its Copenhagen embassy – the official IRNA news agency said the attack on Thursday involved four Iranian dissidents.

To read all the above articles in full see: http://seven59.dk/archive (subscription required)
Social Affairs

41 reception centres for asylum seekers have been closed down over the past 12 months, a reflection of the drastic reduction in the number of refugees and a ‘welcome trend’ according to Immigration Minister Inger Støjberg.

Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen unwittingly shook hands with a notorious gang leader during a fact-finding visit to the crime ridden Vollsmose social housing complex in Odense, Thursday.

A British couple businessman and his Chinese-born wife, who were arrested in 2014 trying to exchange DKK 280,000 in small denomination coins at the Danish National Bank, launched a DKK1.3m ($200,000) demand for compensation for unlawful detention in this country.

Denmark has, jointly, the world’s third most ‘powerful’ passport, according to a new global ranking.

Business

Facebook is to build a 56,500 square meter data centre near Odense in central Denmark – the city sold the industrial piece of land for DKK 68m($10m).

Copenhagen came out on top in the first edition of the Global City Talent Competitive Index (GCTCI) which ranks cities throughout the world on their ability to ‘attract, maintain, and develop’ business interests.

A Danish IT website found a number of errors in the documentation put forward by US intelligence agencies as evidence of Russian hacker attacks on the US – Version2 claimed to have analysed 248 IP-addresses in the report by FBI and Homeland Security and found 18 mistakes, including Germany being named as Denmark and Switzerland as Swaziland.

Retail purchases with the national debit card, Dankort, an indicator of private consumption, rose 2.2 percent in December from a year earlier to DKK35.4bn($5.06bn), bringing purchases for the whole year to DKK355bn, up 3.7 percent from 2015 – the Producer Price Index rose 3.2 percent year-over-year in December, faster than the 2.4 percent climb in November.

The government put forward a proposal to extend the two National Test Centres for Large Wind Turbines on the west coast of Jutland so they can accommodate new, technologically advanced mega-windmills up to 330 meters tall.

The German authorities approved Dong Energy’s building consent for the 448MW Borkum Riffgrund 2 offshore wind farm in the German North Sea, which will allow Dong to deploy 56 MHI Vestas 8MW turbines at the project – Vestas upgraded its expectations for free cash flow in 2016 by up to 60%, compared with its previous estimates. The percentage of Denmark’s total electricity consumption produced by wind energy fell for the first time in eight years in 2016, to 37.6%, the lowest since 2013 (33.2%).

And That Was The Week That Was, January 16th – January 22nd 2017: To read all the above articles in full see: http://seven59.dk/archive (subscription required)