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Denmark’s prime minister faces inquiry over decision to cull minks

A parliamentary commission is to grill Denmark's prime minister Mette Frederiksen on Thursday over her government's illegal decision last year to cull all farmed minks nationwide over fears of a new coronavirus strain.

A demonstrator holds a sign reading
A demonstrator holds a sign reading "why is Mette lying" as the Danish PM arrives for questioning over her government's decision to cull mink in 2020. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

Formerly the world’s leading exporter of mink fur, the Scandinavian country in November last year controversially decided to kill all of its 15-17 million minks after studies suggested the variant found in some of the animals could jeopardise the effectiveness of future vaccines.

The commission will be seeking to determine whether Frederiksen was aware that the order had no legal basis — a fact that emerged soon after the cull was underway and led the country’s agriculture minister to resign.

At the time, the government only had the authority to ask mink farmers in the seven municipalities affected by the mutation to cull their minks.

But an agreement was reached retroactively, rendering the government’s decision legal, and the nationwide cull went ahead as planned.

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Prior to the cull, Denmark was also the world’s second largest producer of mink fur after China.

A specially appointed parliamentary commission has since April been scrutinising the government’s decision and all documents related to it, as well as questioning witnesses to dissect the decision-making process.

Ultimately, the commission will decide whether or not to recommend that the matter be brought before a special court that judges the actions of cabinet members while in office.

Frederiksen has maintained that she did not know her decision was unlawful, and insisted that it was “based on a very serious risk assessment”.

“So far, during the hearings, we have not seen any evidence that the prime minister was aware of the illegality,” Frederik Waage, a law professor at the University of Southern Denmark, told AFP.

“As someone who was personally very involved in the handling of the case… it is obviously important to hear her own version of events,” Waage stressed.

In October, controversy around the decision was reignited when it was revealed that Frederiksen’s text messages from the time had disappeared.

Her office said they had been automatically deleted after 30 days for security reasons.

But many politicians greeted the claim with scepticism. Only two of the 51 ministers and ex-ministers interviewed by public broadcaster DR said they had the same setting installed on their phones while in office.

The commission called on police and intelligence services to help, but they were unable to recover the text messages.

Media and lawmakers have repeatedly questioned Frederiksen on the issue.

According to political commentator Hans Engell, her at times annoyed responses have become a problem of their own, as the opposition has managed to capitalise on the subject and keep it in the headlines.

“It is clear that the government and Mette Frederiksen are very irritated,” he wrote in the daily Berlingske.

Unlike the Delta or Omicron variants, the mink mutation has disappeared.

A few weeks after the cull in the North Jutland region in northwestern Denmark, where many mink farms were concentrated, the mutation was declared extinct.

The Danish parliament later passed an emergency law which banned the breeding of the mammals in 2021, which was then extended to 2022, devastating the industry.

Mink is the only animal so far confirmed to be capable of both contracting Covid-19 and recontaminating humans, which is why it has been under special surveillance during the pandemic.

The commission is due to report its findings in April 2022.

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MINKS

Denmark demolishes mink farms three years after controversial shutdown

Authorities in Denmark have begun the ‘largest demolition job in the country’s modern history’ to tear down disused mink fur farms, three years after a government order to cull the country’s captive population of the animals during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Denmark demolishes mink farms three years after controversial shutdown

In late 2020, the government ordered all fur farm minks to be destroyed amid concerns about a potential mutation of Covid-19 in the animals.

Most of the farms are located in West and North Jutland, where work has now begun to tear them down, Transport Minister Thomas Danielsen and Food and Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen said in a joint statement.

“It’s only reasonable that mink farmers and their families can now look forward to a dignified end to an undignified chapter which has had serious consequences for affected families,” the ministers said.

The Building and Property Agency (Bygningsstyrelsen) says the work to demolish the farms is the biggest demolition job seen in modern Denmark.

Some 220 mink farmers have so far applied to have their farms demolished. The agency expects to receive more requests given 1,227 applications have so far ben submitted for the government’s compensation package for mink farmers who lost their businesses to the 2020 order.

Some 90 farms have been inspected with a view to compensation and subsequent demolition.

The farms cannot be demolished until compensation cases with farmers are concluded. Once this process is complete, the farms must be torn down.

Demolition of the farms and removal of rubble will cost an estimated 3.7 billion kroner.

Denmark decided to kill all of its some 15 million minks in November 2020 after studies suggested a variant found in some of the animals could jeopardise the effectiveness of future Covid-19 vaccines.

The measure was rushed through and the mutation found in minks was later deemed extinct.

All breeding was subsequently banned in 2021 and 2022.

However the cull quickly turned into a political nightmare for the Social Democrat government as it later emerged there was no legal basis to impose the measure on farmers.

In July 2022, a commission of inquiry set up to determine responsibility for the affair concluded that Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had made “seriously misleading” statements without having “either the knowledge or the perspective” to judge.

The commission however elected only to reprimand Frederiksen without further consequence.

The ban on mink fur breeding was lifted at the end of 2022.

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