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MINKS

Danish PM ‘grossly misled’ during 2020 mink announcement

An official inquiry has found that Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen “grossly misled” at a November 4th 2020 press briefing when she announced that all Denmark’s captive mink population must be culled, according to initial reports of the commission’s findings.

Danish PM 'grossly misled' during 2020 mink announcement
An official Danish commission on Thursday submitted its report into the 2020 decision to cull fur farm mink.

Several million mink were culled following the government decision in early November 2020, which was made amid concerns that mutated versions of Covid-19 could emerge from the animals and threaten the effectiveness of vaccines against the coronavirus.

The government order to cull the minks was later found to have no legal basis.

A commission was subsequently appointed to lead an official inquiry into the scandal and was due to submit its conclusions on Thursday.

The commission concluded that Frederiksen’s announcements “objectively seen, were grossly misleading”, news wire Ritzau reports.

The conclusions have not yet been made public but have been partly leaked to broadcasters DR and TV2.

The commission also said that Frederiksen “did not have knowledge about of the intention of” misleading, meaning she was not aware that the legal basis for the decision was not in place, according to the reports.

It is not the duty of the commission to make a legal assessment of whether ministers acted intentionally or recklessly.

Parliament has the responsibility for final conclusions, meaning that the minority Social Democratic government’s allied parties on the left wing are likely to have a decisive say in whether the matter is taken forward, following the submission of the commission’s report.

Potential consequences for Frederiksen could take the form of an official reprimand, known as a næse, or the appointment of a special impeachment court, a rare occurrence in Danish politics.

Frederiksen is currently attending a Nato summit in Madrid and was not expected to comment on the matter on Thursday. Earlier this week, she said she “did not believe there was basis for an impeachment court” over the mink scandal.

Denmark was the world’s leading exporter of mink fur until it decided in November 2020 to cull all its 15-17 million minks, after studies suggested that a variant found in some of the animals could jeopardise the effectiveness of future vaccines.

The variant was later considered to have been eradicated before a compensation package worth billions of kroner was agreed for the farmers.

The original order by the government to cull the mink was shown to have been illegal shortly after the initial culling order was given, resulting in one of the biggest scandals in modern Danish politics.

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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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