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HEALTH

Germans ‘can’t eat any more chocolate’

Each German eats nearly 32 kilos of chocolate and sweets per year - so much that sales have peaked, leaving the domestic industry searching for growth markets abroad, it admitted on Thursday.

Published: 14 March 2013 15:59 CET
Germans 'can't eat any more chocolate'
Photo: DPA

“The sweets business is not exactly a cakewalk at the moment,” said Dietmar Kendziur, president of the German confectionary industry association.

“We would be happy if 2013 turned out like 2012,” he added. Last year the industry saw a 0.3 percent drop in turnover to €12.47 billion.

The German market is considered to be saturated, unable to take any more chocolate, sweets or biscuits – not even a wafer thin mint.

This left manufacturers looking to foreign markets for growth – in 2000 just a fifth of products were sold abroad while now that share is nearly half. But foreign markets seem to be losing their sweet tooth for German confectionary, and last year’s 1.68 million tonnes exported was four percent down on the previous year.

It is not as if Germans have suddenly turned to healthy alternatives from chocolate and sweets – they are reaching for more crisps and other salty snacks instead, Kendziur said. He blamed the European football championship for this development.

DPA/The Local/hc

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HEALTH

Danish parties agree to raise abortion limit to 18 weeks

Denmark's government has struck a deal with four other parties to raise the point in a pregnancy from which a foetus can be aborted from 12 weeks to 18 weeks, in the first big change to Danish abortion law in 50 years.

Published: 3 May 2024 08:06 CEST
Danish parties agree to raise abortion limit to 18 weeks

The government struck the deal with the Socialist Left Party, the Red Green Alliance, the Social Liberal Party and the Alternative party, last week with the formal announcement made on Monday  

“In terms of health, there is no evidence for the current week limit, nor is there anything to suggest that there will be significantly more or later abortions by moving the week limit,” Sophie Løhde, Denmark’s Minister of the Interior and Health, said in a press release announcing the deal.

The move follows the recommendations of Denmark’s Ethics Council, which in September 2023 proposed raising the term limit, pointing out that Denmark had one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Western Europe. 

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Under the deal, the seven parties, together with the Liberal Alliance and the Conservatives, have also entered into an agreement to replace the five regional abortion bodies with a new national abortion board, which will be based in Aarhus. 

From July 1st, 2025, this new board will be able to grant permission for abortions after the 18th week of pregnancy if there are special considerations to take into account. 

The parties have also agreed to grant 15-17-year-olds the right to have an abortion without parental consent or permission from the abortion board.

Marie Bjerre, Denmark’s minister for Digitalization and Equality, said in the press release that this followed logically from the age of sexual consent, which is 15 years old in Denmark. 

“Choosing whether to have an abortion is a difficult situation, and I hope that young women would get the support of their parents. But if there is disagreement, it must ultimately be the young woman’s own decision whether she wants to be a mother,” she said. 

The bill will be tabled in parliament over the coming year with the changes then coming into force on June 1st, 2025.

The right to free abortion was introduced in Denmark in 1973. 

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