The Week That Was, January 21st – January 27th 2019

Politics/Economy:

The latest Epinion poll for DR News indicates 54.2% would vote for the ‘red’ bloc if an election was held today – support for the government alliance has fallen to 45.8%.

New figures revealed that not one single piece of jewellery has been confiscated from a refugee arriving at the border since parliament passed the controversial jewellery bill three years ago.

Defence Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen told a parliamentary hearing the government takes political concerns about Huawei very seriously but has no legal possibility of excluding the Chinese telecom giant from Denmark’s new 5G telecommunications infrastructure – he also called for international rules regarding the use of so-called killer robots – or lethal autonomous weapons, LAWs.

Business Minister Rasmus Jarlov presented more than 100 new initiatives, Thursday, aimed at boosting infrastructure in the Greater Copenhagen region,

An official report charting Denmark’s participation in foreign wars between 1993 – 2004 has been postponed following a dispute between Speaker of the House Pia Kjærsgaard and Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen.

Confidential documents obtained by Politiken showed the Tax Department (SKAT) was tipped off about the multi-billion share-dividend scandal months before it happened but failed to react.

A new government proposal would allow police agents the right to use fake IDs when tracking criminality on the internet

EU/Foreign Affairs:

The Social Democrats and Liberals lead the way in the countdown to the EU election in May – a new YouGov poll indicated the Social Democrats stand to win 22.5% of the vote, while at 20% the Liberals have made significant gains since the last election.

In a new YouGov poll for the Copenhagen-based Europa think tank, 50% of voters said Denmark should join the proposed EU defence pact but, paradoxically, a slight majority still wants to maintain the opt out that excludes Denmark from pan-EU military cooperation – a new report showed Danish police made nearly 160,000 searches in Europol’s database last year, compared to 88,000 in 2017, despite Denmark’s opt-out on justice affairs.

Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen urged the EU to tighten sanctions on Russia for continuing to detain 24 Ukrainian sailors.

Denmark recognised Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president after the 35-year-old declared himself acting leader in Caracas on Wednesday.

Finance Minister Kristian Jensen said France needs to show a willingness to compromise before Denmark supports its proposal for an EU-wide digital tax.

Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said Denmark’s relations with India, cool for years due to the  Niels Holck affair, are on an ‘upward trajectory’.

Denmark’s EU Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, fined global credit card giant Mastercard €570m ($647m) for limiting competition between banks.

Denmark slipped to 13th on the  2019 Best Countries rankings, an annual report based on a worldwide survey of more than 20,000 people.

The EU approved a €215m grant for the Baltic Pipe project, which will allow transport of gas from Norway to the Danish and Polish markets, via Denmark.

A Russian public prosecutor asked a court to sentence 46-year-old Danish national Dennis Christensen to 6 1/2 years in prison for his affiliation to the Jehovas Witnesses, deemed extremist by Moscow.

Social Affairs:

Only 180 refugees sought asylum in Denmark in December, the lowest single-month figure for more than a decade – the total for all of 2018 was no more than 3,500, the same as the previous year but far less than the 21,316 registered in 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis.

A new report by the right-leaning think-tank CEPOS claimed poverty in Denmark is primarily confined to immigrants.

Left-leaning daily Politiken was fined DKK100,000 for violating an injunction when it published insider secrets two years ago by former head of PET (Danish Intelligence) Jakob Scharf – Jyllands-Posten (JP), Denmark’s biggest-selling daily newspaper, was accused of fake news for claiming that 20,000 migrants and refugees are gathered at the EU border.

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Business:

Ørsted was named the most sustainable energy company in the world by Corporate Knights, a magazine that promotes ‘clean capitalism’ – the company also signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) to work together on offshore wind projects and reduce Japan’s dependency on nuclear power.

IMF Bentham, the largest litigation funder in Australia, announced plans to file a shareholder lawsuit against Danske Bank over the DKK1,500bn ($230 billion) money laundering scandal – the US Federal Reserve is also investigating Deutsche Bank’s role in the scandal.

Bech-Brun, the law firm commissioned by the government to investigate the DKK12.7bn share dividend scandal, concealed crucial information about its link to one of the major players in the tax refund scam.

Nordea, the Nordic region’s biggest banking group, wrote down the value of its Russian business by €141m as part of a new risk strategy.

The Danish business sector expressed concern about the Chinese economy’s downturn after China on Monday announced that its official economic growth came in at 6.6 percent in 2018.

Denmark rose two places to number 5 on this year’s Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI), a comparison of entrepreneurial talent and a country’s ability to compete .

And That Was The Week That Was, January 21st – January 27th 2019: To read all the above articles in full see: http://seven59.dk/archive (subscription required).