The Week That Was, November 14th – November 20th 2016
Politics/Economy
The week ended with a political bombshell when the prime minister announced he had invited the Liberal Alliance and Conservatives to join the government – just one day after Berlingske reported ‘internal rumblings’ within the ruling Liberals about the need for a change in leadership.
After weeks of negotiations the government sealed an agreement on the 2007 budget with its three centre-right allies, Friday, before Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen announced his surprise plan to expand the government.
A new poll showed the opposition would regain power by a significant margin if an election was held right now.
New revised GDP figures indicated the Danish economy is performing better than believed – GDP in 2015 was DKK63bn (approx. $10bn) higher than originally announced.
The ruling Liberals’ climate spokesman, Thomas Danielsen, said Denmark still leads the way in green energy technology even though the government has cut research funding for climate projects. Denmark dropped to 13th on the Climate Change Performance Index 2017 (CCPI) published by Germanwatch, an independent development and environmental organisation based in Germany – in connection with the climate summit COP22 in Morocco, Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen announced a DKK 11m (€1.33m) grant to developing countries towards the use of climate technology.
The government put together a cross-party agreement on funding to replace the DKK3bn shortfall in revenue caused by scrapping the PSO, a duty on electricity that funds green conversion.
Justice Minister Søren Pind renewed his call for increased surveillance of internet and telecom traffic despite accusations of ‘Big Brother’ legislation.
More than 20,000 voter declarations collected by the newly-formed National Party were declared invalid by the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Interior.
A new survey revealed politicians are the least-trusted groups of professionals in Denmark.
Foreign Affairs/EU
After a series of meetings in Brussels, Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen said the EU could be willing to grant Denmark a limited Europol deal – he also warned that if Turkey’s President Erdogan reinstates the death penalty, as threatened, it would signal the end of the country’s EU accession hopes.
As chairman of the eurosceptic MELD (Movement for a Europe of Liberties and Democracy), Danish People’s Party MEP Morten Messerchmidt, at the centre of the EU fraud scandal, awarded a DKK 390,000 advertising campaign contract to one of his closest friends, Nikolaj Bøgh.
Defence Minister Peter Christensen asked parliament for an extra DKK 100m to buy spare parts for Denmark’s new fleet of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Jets (JSF), even though the Danish Air Force won’t start to take delivery of the planes from Lockheed Martin until at least 2021.
Berlingske claimed that a planned official visit to Denmark by a high-ranking Indian minister last week that was cancelled at the last minute last week is a sign that diplomatic relations between the two countries are still suffering from the Niels Holck arms affair.
Denmark’s exports to Iran are far-outstripping the EU average – goods exports grew by 80% during the first six months of the year compared to the corresponding period in 2015, but only 13% throughout the EU as whole.
Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen discussed security issues with US President-elect Donald Trump during a 10-minute telephone conversation, Wednesday, described afterwards as a ‘friendly and constructive talk’ by the PM – US Ambassador Rufus Gifford and his partner, Stephen De Vincent, had originally planned to stay on in Denmark until after summer next year if Hillary Clinton had won the battle for the White House but will now leave as soon as President-elect Trump is inaugurated in January.
Ex-prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen claimed successive international coalitions’ failure to come up with a cohesive, political agenda for Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya led to the creation of the Islamic State (ISIS).
The home-rule administration in Nuuk called on the Danish government to demand that the USA accepts responsibility for a clean-up at the top-secret Camp Century nuclear missile base, built under the Greenland ice sheet in 1959 as part of the USA’s defence against the Soviet Union, after a recent study claimed that melting Artic ice could expose biological, chemical and radioactive waste.
A new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) promoted the Danish water sector as a ‘role model’ for the rest of the world.
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Social Affairs
The number of asylum seekers arriving in Denmark remains low – only 52 last week, bringing the total for the year so far to 5,601, 75% down on the corresponding period in 2015.
Parliament green-lighted a pilot programme from 2018 that will allow patients suffering from chronic ailments to be prescribed medicinal cannabis – a political majority is pushing for state-controlled production. Copenhagen Police closed down a cannabis factory in the ’free state’ of Christiania that it’s claimed produced 140,000 ’joints’ over the past two months.
An imam who called Jews ‘the offspring of apes and pigs’ during a sermon at an Odense mosque in 2014 was charged with racism.
The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (DVFA) ordered that all poultry held privately be kept indoors after avian influenza H5N8 (bird flu)was found in wild ducks.
A new poll taken on the occasion of the Crown Prince couple’s ‘copper’ (twelve and a half years of marriage) anniversary showed seven out of ten people believe Denmark should remain a monarchy.
Business
A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world’s largest shipping line, has already reported a dramatic drop in profit amid plummeting shipping rates since Donald Trump won the race to the White House last week – wind energy giant Vestas has also seen shares plunge. Vestas announced plans to cut approximately 350 employees from its blade manufacturing facility in Lem, west Denmark, before the New Year.
The latest ‘Emerging Trends in Real Estate’ report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) ranked Copenhagen as the most attractive city for investors in the Nordic region and sixth in Europe.
Novozymes, the world leader in biological solutions, announced plans to build a new production facility near Mumbai, India, to cater for the growing India and South-East Asia markets.
Toy giant Lego pulled all advertising from the right-wing British Daily Mail following a public campaign calling on big companies to drop adverts from newspapers accused of promoting “hatred, discrimination and demonisation”.
The Bangladesh authorities intervened and stopped the controversial breakup of the former Maersk tanker ‘Producer’ at a local beach-based scrapyard.
Odense-based robotics company Jorgensen Engineering was sold to Swedish XANO for a quarter of a billion kroner (€33m).
The shipping division of DFDS upgraded its expectations for fiscal year 2016, anticipating an operating profit in excess of DKK 2.5bn.
Bloomberg News claimed Denmark’s status as safe-haven for investors at times of economic and political turbulence is under threat following Donald Trump’s election as US President.
Danish ‘hot-shot’ architect Bjarke Ingels has been picked to design the new Google headquarters at Kings Cross in London.
And That Was The Week That Was, November 14th – November 20th 2016: To read all the above articles in full see: http://seven59.dk/archive (subscription required)