Weekly political overview
The end of fake phone calls and SMS: The Ministry of Digitalization has promised to create in the coming weeks the legislative framework that will allow telecom companies to screen phone calls and SMS to stop spoofing. Finland has already taken this step, and they are able to prevent 200,000 fake calls every day. Spoofing is when fraudsters are using technology that allows them to mask their real numbers as Danish numbers with the purpose of getting your credit card information or other valuable data.
When will we stop using gas as a source of heating for individual homes? Multiple political parties are asking the government to give an end date for the usage of gas boilers. As district heating is being rolled out around the country, there are still people that say “no” to it, preferring to use the gas boilers or other sources of heating. This has raised concerns, as the political agenda is to phase out gas usage and people should prepare slowly to replace their gas boilers. A clear end date should hasten the process.
Mette Frederiksen is lobbying the other Nordic Council members to give full membership status to Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Full membership status means that they will have equal rights and be treated as “independent countries” in the Nordic Council. This is a major step in allowing Greenland and the Faroe Islands to pursue a more independent foreign policy.
Proposals from political parties
- SF (Socialists) want to introduce the program “free meals at school”. They proposed a gradual rollout from 2025 with the ambition to cover the entire country until 2030. Radikale Venstre (Social Liberals) and Moderaterne (Social Liberals) support the idea. Socialdemokratiet (Social Democrats) are against the idea.
- Members of the European Parliament from Moderaterne (Social Liberals), Konservative (Conservatives), and SF (Socialists) want to change the rules on CO2 quotas so that private airplanes are not exempt. In the next few years, the “free quotas” used by some airlines will be phased out, and tickets will gradually get more expensive.
Snapshots from the political stage
- The “blue” opposition parties (Liberal Alliance, Konservative, Danmarksdemokraterne) are calling on Venstre (Liberals) to join them and campaign for a purely “blue” right-wing government in 2026. The leader of Venstre is hesitant as they have been able to implement a lot of liberal policies as part of the center government with Socialdemokratiet and Moderaterne.
- DF (Nationalists Conservative) are not welcome in the new “blue” block that Inger Støjberg (Danmarksdemokraterne) is building with Alex Vanopslagh (Liberal Alliance) and Mona Juul (Konservative). The reason is simple – one nationalist party (Danmarksdemokraterne) is enough in the alliance.
Focus
Are football hooligans a problem in Denmark? After the unreal level of violence shown by the supporters of FCK and Brøndby at a recent match, the Ministry of Justice wants to deal with the culture of violence among hooligans. The first step is to introduce face recognition cameras at the stadiums so that they can enforce entry bans on violent supporters. Further on, the Minister wants to also give public access to the hooligan register. His team is now looking into the legal possibilities.
- The hooligan register is a list of people who got in trouble with the police in connection to sports events. The register was established in 2008, and it can only be accessed by the police. If the access is made public, it can affect the hooligans standing in society, workplace, family, etc.
Has the fentanyl epidemic spread to Denmark? The drugs that can turn people into zombies, the opioids, are becoming a problem in Denmark. Opioids are a group of drugs that can relieve pain on the central nervous system (fentanyl, heroin, methadone, oxycodone, morphine, and tramadol). To monitor the situation, the government will analyze the waste water from the six largest cities (Copenhagen, Aarhus, Aalborg, Odense, Esbjerg, and Næstved). With the data obtained, they want to map the distribution of the different opioids.
- The Ministry of Justice is also preparing tougher punishments for opioid dealers (such as replacing fines with prison time) and more control of social media and “kiosks” (small corner stores) to identify them. Opioids are considered more dangerous than cocaine.
