The Week That Was, May 8th – 12th 2017
Politics/Economy
While the majority of Danish politicians publicly congratulated French President-elect Emmanuel Macron for his election victory, Sunday, he was dismissed as a ‘little gay boy’ by former Danish People’s Party (DPP) MP and vicar Søren Krarup – he later apologised but continued to insist that homosexuals are handicapped.
Integration Minister Inger Støjberg accused members of her own parliamentary committee of sabotaging the government’s policies by leaking confidential information to the press.
Danish exports rose 16.9 percent year-on-year to a record high of DKK 63.6bn ($9.2bn) in March – the seasonally adjusted trade surplus excluding ships grew slightly to DKK 6.4 bn in March from 6.2 billion in February.Inflation increased by 1.1% in April, the highest level since the start of 2013.
A new report showed the average Dane would need an income of at least DKK1.4m annually to qualify as being in the nation’s top 1% earners – the top 1% earn 8% of the collective income in this country, compared to 13% in the UK and 22% in the U.S.
Danish homeowners could postpone paying around DKK85bn (€11.3bn) in property taxes until 2060 under the terms of a cross-party agreement which allows them to ‘freeze’ taxes until the day they sell their home.
EU/Foreign Affairs
After talks with his U.S. counterpart James Mattis in Copenhagen, Defence Minister Claus Hjorth Frederiksen said Denmark would be willing to send more troops to Afghanistan – Mr Mattis told Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen the ‘U.S stands firmly with its ally and fellow NATO member Denmark’.
Free trade and the Arctic topped Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen’s agenda during his trip to Canada and the U.S..
Minister for Foreign Affairs Anders Samuelsen said Denmark will again help to protect the sovereignty of Baltic countries’ airspace from the start of next year with a detachment of 4 F-16 fighter jets and 60 accompanying personnel. Parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee gave the government the go-ahead to deploy a detachment consisting of a Challenger airplane to support the monitoring of shipping traffic in the Indian Ocean and make a Challenger airplane available for the Mediterranean efforts to monitor EU’s outer borders under Frontex.
Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said the final cost of Great Britain’s EU ‘divorce’ are a long way off being finalised, even though analysts have predicted it could be around €100bn. He also said that by electing Emmanuel Macron France has shown it wants to strengthen the EU and European cooperation.
Denmark was ranked third on a table of 26 EU countries in terms of how political parties have achieved electoral success by employing xenophobic/racist policies – Poland came in 1st followed by Croatia.
Parliament passed a bill that will allow Denmark to join the Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (HKC) – Danish ships today are often dismantled by hand by workers with very little personal protective equipment in ship breaking yards in India, China, and Turkey.
Environmental campaigners urged the EU to take action against Denmark for failing to act against the traditional annual hunt of pilot whales in the Faroe Islands.
The U.S. warned Denmark not to allow the controversial Russian pipeline Nordstram2 pass through Danish territorial waters.
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Social Affairs
One of the six hate preachers banned from entering Denmark responded in a lengthy YouTube tirade against Danish society and Integration Minister Inger Støjberg – in an 18-minute video, Bilal Philips, a Jamaican-born Canadian Muslim cleric, claimed he has never been a hate preacher or preached hate against anyone in Denmark.
Copenhagen imam Mundhir Abdallah was reported to the police after calling for death to all Jews – he was caught on video preaching ‘judgement day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.’
Danish police seized a record amounts of drugs last year – 3.8 tons of cannabis, 345 kilos of amphetamine, 118,75 kilos of cocaine, and 15 kilos of heroin, as police conducted the highest number of drug busts ever.
The IMF (International Monetary Fund) said Danish graduates are ‘spoilt’ and questioned why newly qualified students should be allowed to spend two years claiming unemployment insurance when there’s a shortage of manpower in this country.
DPP MP Kenneth Kristensen Berth called for a ban on jet skis off the country’s coast following last weekend’s tragic accident when two American students were killed in a crash in Copenhagen harbor when reckless jet skiers crashed into their small boat.
Business:
Denmark’s biggest mortgage lender, Nykredit Realkredit, brushed off concerns of a new housing bubble – CEO Michael Rasmussen predicted the booming property market, fuelled by five years of negative interest rates, will continue its upward trajectory.
Goldman Sachs announced plans to sell 8.8 million shares in partially state-owned Dong Energy it acquired in a controversial 2014 deal that split the previous centre-left government.
And That Was The Week That Was, May 8th – 12th 2017 – To read all the above articles in full see: http://seven59.dk/archive (subscription required)