In 2015, the population of Denmark was estimated to be around 5.7 million people. The majority of the population is ethnically Danish with a small percentage of immigrants from other Nordic countries and Europe. The economy of Denmark is highly developed and based on services such as finance, transport and tourism. It also has a strong manufacturing sector that produces goods such as pharmaceuticals, electronics, food products and chemicals. In terms of foreign relations, Denmark is a member of several international organizations including NATO, the European Union and the United Nations. See ehealthfacts for Denmark in the year of 2005.
In 2015, politics in Denmark were dominated by Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen who had been in office since 2009. He was re-elected in 2011 with a centre-right coalition government that focused on fiscal austerity measures such as tax cuts and pension reform. Opposition to Rasmussen’s government came from both left-wing parties who wanted more social reforms and right-wing parties who wanted less state intervention in economic affairs. In addition, there were tensions between Denmark and its Nordic neighbors over fishing rights which led to disputes over access to the North Sea fishing grounds.
Yearbook 2015
Denmark. According to COUNTRYAAH, Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark which is located in Northern Europe. Denmark was shocked one weekend in February by two terrorist acts in Copenhagen. On Saturday, a perpetrator fired over 30 shots with automatic weapons at the participants in a debate meeting in the cultural center Krudttønden. One man was killed and three police officers were injured in the attack, which was believed to be directed at the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who attended the meeting but managed to recover.
- Also see AbbreviationFinder.org for Denmark country abbreviations, including geography, history, economy and politics.
On the night before Sunday, police officers guarding the Jewish synagogue were shot in the district of Nørrebro, where a bar mitzvah (celebration of Jewish boys becoming men) was taking place. One of the ward’s own guards met in the head and died. The man who was guilty of both deaths was shot dead later that night by police. It was a 22-year-old, born in Denmark, who served a prison sentence for violent crime and was reported to have approached a violent Islamist ideology. Several assistants were arrested later.
The deed got a lot of attention in Europe. Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt urged the nation to cohesion. She spoke in Danish, English and French and thanked for the support of the outside world when close to 40,000 people gathered in Copenhagen to honor the victims of the attacks.
The government decided to give the security police greatly increased resources to strengthen its ability to monitor social media, discover preparations for terrorist acts and scout Danes planning to join the Islamic State (IS) terror group.
In May, the head of the security and intelligence service PET resigned after being criticized for police efforts following the terrorist attacks. Among other things, it was several hours after the first deed before the police came to guard the synagogue where the next attack took place.
The Social Democrats were the largest in opinion polls for the first time in four years, and Prime Minister Thorning-Schmidt announced new elections until June 18. However, the bourgeois bloc still led over the left bloc, and bourgeois people opted for lower taxes and tight immigration policies. The Social Democrats had also adapted to demands for reduced immigration, but the large electoral promise of the S-led government was a welfare package of DKK 39 billion, which for five years would go to care, school, care and environmental adjustment.
The election became a scarce victory for the right-wing party, where the Danish People’s Party went strong and for the first time became the largest bourgeois party with just over 21% of the vote. Liberal Venstre returned to just over 19%. The Social Democrats increased slightly and retained the seat as the largest party in the Folketing by just over 26%, but both Radical Venstre and the Socialist People’s Party halved. The left government lost power, a mandate was taken. Helle Thorning-Schmidt resigned as prime minister and as S leader, and Mette Frederiksen was appointed new party leader.
Left leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen was commissioned to form a new government. Attempts to get with the Danish People’s Party (DF) fell on DF’s no to tax cuts for high-income earners. Løkke Rasmussen then formed a pure Left government with the support of the Danish People’s Party, Liberal Alliance and Conservatives, a total of 90 of the Folketing’s 179 seats.
The new government tightened immigration policy. Support for asylum seekers was lowered and demands for Danish citizenship were increased. In September, a growing influx of refugees reached southern Denmark. Hundreds of people who came by ferry from Germany set out on the roads to reach Sweden. Denmark began to reject them back to Germany and the government announced in newspapers in the Middle East about reduced Danish benefits to asylum seekers.
Denmark also stood outside the EU agreement on the distribution of asylum seekers among the member states. But there was strong support in opinion for Danish participation, and the government promised to welcome 1,000 people. DF was opposed, but Venstre received support from the opposition in the Folketing.
After three months at his post, Defense Minister Carl Holst resigned in September after receiving harsh criticism, among other things, for controversial statements about Denmark’s role in the Iraq war and for using public funds in his election campaign.
Following a settlement between the Left government, the support parties and the Social Democrats, the Folketing decided after a quick debate in November on stricter immigration policy. There were 34 points with tougher rules for residence permits and family reunification as well as increased financial responsibility for asylum seekers and more. In addition, the punishment for begging, which is prohibited in Denmark, was intensified. The decisions were harshly criticized by the Left Party Enhedslisten and by human rights organizations.
A referendum in December said no to release Denmark’s reservations in the EU’s jurisdiction. Thus, for example, the country does not fully participate in Europol.
Danish war crimes in Afghanistan
In the fall of 2009, former Danish hunter Thomas Rathsack published the book Jæger – at war with the elite, which was a soldier story about the war in Afghanistan. The book release ended as absurd theater, costing the Chief of Defense, several senior officers and War Minister Søren Gade’s spin doctor their positions. Søren Gade was also to be fired, but ended up leaving himself in the spring of 2010.
Rathsack had, at an early stage, been working on his book to inform the defense staff – because of the limited framework for freedom of expression in Denmark. The defense staff had no objection, even after reading key parts of the book. Only when the book release reached the War Department did the authorities decide to prevent the book from being published. According to the freedom of expression, according to. the Ministry of War “not for the sake of Denmark’s relations with foreign powers”. In the tense situation, the newspaper Politiken decided to publish the book as a separate section of the newspaper. Five days later, the bail tribunal abandoned the ban on the book because it was already published. To emphasize the danger of the book, the Defense Staff now translated the book into Arabic using Google Translate and put it on the Internet. The claim was that the Taliban had already got their fingers in the book and had translated it. It was a lie and put the claim that the book in the hands of the Taliban would be dangerous for Danish soldiers “and foreign powers (USA)” in a comedic light. On October 1, this lie also bubbled out when journalists who had received the Arabic translation found that it came from the Defense Command. IT manager Jesper Britze was then released and three days later Defense Manager Tim Sloth Jørgensen was removed. Before then, Søren Gade had promised to go, if it was revealed that it was the Ministry of War behind the Arabic translation, but after the disclosure he stuck his head in the bush and went first ifbm. a government rocket in the spring of 2010. In contrast, his spin doctor Jacob Winther was removed.
The spin doctor was already involved in another case when film director Christoffer Guldbrandsen revealed that in 2007, the spin doctor had leaked information to TV2 about Danish hunter soldiers ‘secret’ mission in Afghanistan. The information was secretly stamped “in danger of alien powers” and the disclosure would have resulted in imprisonment and was therefore “serious”. Authorities are now launching an investigation to uncover the source of the 2007 leak, but the investigation quickly became picky. At the same time, spin doctor Winther threatened to bring a case against Guldbrandsen for slander. However, this case was never brought, which further weakened the spin doctor’s denial in the case.
The Afghan war was the source of new scandals in 2010. The Danish documentary Armadillo made by director Janus Metz was first shown in May. The film revealed Danish war crimes in Afghanistan. In the film, Danish soldiers admitted to killing civilians, women and children. At the same time, other soldiers admitted that they wound up Afghan prisoners of war/warriors who were no longer capable of fighting. Killing civilians is a serious violation of the 4th Geneva Convention, the purpose of which is to secure civilians during war or warlike situations. Liquidation of prisoners of war and incompetents is a gross violation of the 1st Geneva Convention. The film did not lead to prosecution of the guilty soldiers and officers. The government and the Defense Forces thus became complicit in war crimes and in providing impunity for war crimes.
In modern wars, the rule of thumb is that 85-90% of victims are civilians. The same is true in Afghanistan, despite the government’s assurances that those killed are Taliban. In 2009, Danish Hunter soldiers were on a secret mission in Afghanistan that killed 60-70 civilians. The precise circumstances are still kept secret by the government and the military.