Mink breeders thrown out of compensation committees 

Mink fur breeders will no longer participate on committees which decide how much compensation to award other mink breeders, agriculture minister Jacob Jensen confirmed yesterday to broadcaster DR.

The government set aside billions of kroner for compensation to mink breeders after ordering all fur farm minks be destroyed in late 2020, over concerns related to Covid-19 mutations in the animals. The order to destroy the minks was later found to be illegal in a major scandal for the government.

Recent reports have described how the breeders have gained influence over the compensation through their presence on committees.

“We don’t think there should be direct representation on the commissions,” Jensen told DR.

Vocabulary: indflydelse – influence

Denmark to host migration conference

An international migration conference is scheduled to take place in Copenhagen on May 6th.

Policymakers and experts from Europe, the Middle East and Africa will attend the summit at the Eigtveds Pakhus conference facility, the immigration ministry said in a statement.

Denmark’s immigration minister Kaare Dybvad Bek and global partnership and climate minister Dan Jørgensen will be among the Danish representatives.

“The number of irregular migrants arriving in Europe in 2023 was at its highest since the 2015-16 [refugee] crisis. But the existing asylum system has enormous human costs, while human traffickers make huge profits,” Bek said in the statement.

READ ALSO: Border centres and ‘safe’ states: The EU’s major asylum changes explained

Vocabulary: beslutningstager – policymaker

Far fewer people changed job in 2023

A record number of job changes on the Danish labour market in 2022 was followed by a less dramatic period last year, new figures show.

There were 873,635 job changes in total last year, 78,482 fewer than in 2022. That is the largest year-on-year drop since the statistic began in 2009.

“Fewer job changes reflect several factors, including that high inflation depressed the economy and the demand for labour,” Mads Moberg Reumert, chief economist at Danica Pension which provides the statistics, said in a written comment to newswire Ritzau.

Vocabulary: en dæmper – a dampener

City apartments lose value in early months of 2024

A drop in the price of apartments in Copenhagen and stable house price trends were among the features of the Danish property market during the early months of 2024.

House prices for both detached (villaer) and semi-detached or terraced (rækkehus) housing fell by 0.2 percent in terms of the price per square metre in the first quarter of this year, new data from specialist media Boligsiden show.

Effectively, this means house prices were unchanged in the first part of this year compared to the end of 2023, the property media said in a press release.

Stable house prices makes a substantial – if lower than forecast – drop in the cost of apartments in Copenhagen the key takeaway from property market data from the first quarter of this year.