Category Archives: Denmark

Weather tracker: floods, storms and wildfires in Europe

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North of continent records unusually wet and windy summer conditions while Portugal and Spain battle flames

Floods struck northern and central Europe last week. Some areas of Slovenia recorded more than 200mm of rain in 12 hours on Thursday and Friday, causing extensive flooding across two-thirds of the country. Many buildings and roads were damaged, at an estimated cost of €500m (£432m), and six deaths were reported.

Storm Hans hit the Baltic region a few days later. Hans originated as an area of low pressure over eastern Europe, but quickly deepened as it travelled northwards towards the Baltic Sea. The low was unusually deep for a summer storm, and led to daily rainfall totals of 80 to 100mm in parts of southern Norway and Sweden earlier this week.

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Lack of consensus on next Nato chief could lead to Stoltenberg staying on

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Disagreement over possible successors may mean secretary general is asked to remain in role at next month’s summit in Lithuania

Political disagreements, vetoes and personal reluctance make it increasingly likely that the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, will be asked to remain in post for another year at the Nato summit in Lithuania next month.

It would be the third time the former Norwegian prime minister has been asked to extend his almost 10-year term.

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WHO members vote to move Moscow office and urge Russia to stop attacks on hospitals

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Member states vote to relocate the office to Denmark by the end of the year, in response to health impacts of Ukraine conflict

Member states of the World Health Organization voted on Wednesday to move a Moscow-based office of the WHO to Copenhagen, and urged Russia to stop attacks on hospitals and healthcare facilities in Ukraine.

At the 76th World Health Assembly in Geneva, 80 member states voted to request the WHO secretariat to relocate the European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases to Denmark before the new year.

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Many Europeans want climate action – but less so if it changes their lifestyle, shows poll

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Exclusive: YouGov survey in seven countries tested backing for government and individual action on crisis

Many Europeans are alarmed by the climate crisis and would willingly take personal steps and back government policies to help combat it, a survey suggests – but the more a measure would change their lifestyle, the less they support it.

The seven-country YouGov survey tested backing for state-level climate action, such as banning single-use plastics and scrapping fossil-fuel cars, and individual initiatives including buying only secondhand clothes and giving up meat and dairy products.

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Russian navy ship photographed near Nord Stream pipelines before blasts

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Submarine rescue vessel SS-750 was photographed in Baltic four days before still-unexplained explosions, says Danish newspaper

A Russian navy vessel specialising in submarine operations was photographed near the sabotaged Nord Stream gas pipelines just prior to the mysterious September blasts, according to the Danish daily newspaper Information.

The prosecutor leading Sweden’s investigation into the sabotage confirmed the existence of the hitherto publicly unknown photographs.

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Hoard of 1,000-year-old Viking coins unearthed in Denmark

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Artefacts believed to date back to 980s found by girl metal-detecting in cornfield last autumn

Nearly 300 silver coins believed to be more than 1,000 years old have been discovered near a Viking fortress site in north-west Denmark, a museum has said.

The trove – lying in two spots not far apart – was unearthed by a girl who was metal-detecting in a cornfield last autumn.

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Russian spy network operating in North Sea, investigation claims

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Moscow using spy ships disguised as fishing vessels to monitor potential sabotage targets, say broadcasters

A joint investigation by the public broadcasters of several Nordic countries alleges that Russia has established a state-run programme using spy ships disguised as fishing vessels aimed at giving it the capability to attack windfarms and communications cables in the North Sea.

The investigation quotes a Danish counter-intelligence officer who claims the sabotage strategy is designed to be implemented in the event that Russia and the west enter a full-blown conflict.

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World’s oldest European hedgehog discovered in Denmark

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‘Emotional’ posthumous discovery of 16-year-old hedgehog gives conservationists hope for the mammals’ future preservation

A 16-year-old European hedgehog called Thorvald has been crowned the oldest in the world, smashing the previous record by seven years.

The male hedgehog lived near the town of Silkeborg in the centre of Denmark. Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen, from the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) at Oxford University, who led the Danish Hedgehog Project that discovered Thorvald, said she was overwhelmed when she discovered how old he was.

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Danes ‘furious’ over plan to abolish public holiday to fund defence budget

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Union leader says cancelling religious holiday dating from 1600s is threat to Danish welfare model

The Danish government’s plan to abolish a public holiday to help fund the defence budget amid the war in Ukraine is putting Denmark’s cherished welfare model at risk, the country’s biggest trade union confederation has warned.

“It’s a big threat to the Danish model,” said Lizette Risgaard, the head of the FH confederation, which has 1.3 million members in a country of 5.9 million inhabitants. “Politicians should stay out of labour market issues. If they go through with this they will be imposing their will and violate our agreements,” she told AFP on Wednesday.

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Last king of Greece, Constantine II, dies aged 82

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Constantine was forced into exile in 1967 after clashing with military rulers, who later abolished monarchy

Greece’s former King Constantine II, whose nine-year reign coincided with one of the most turbulent periods in the country’s political history, has died at a private hospital in Athens, his doctors announced late on Tuesday. He was 82.

Constantine, a cousin of British monarch King Charles III, died “of a stroke”. He was admitted to an Athens hospital last week with breathing problems, Greek media reported.

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Revered Danish restaurant Noma to close for reinvention at end of 2024

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Copenhagen eatery, regularly ranked as one of world’s best, will become a test kitchen, billed as a food laboratory

The Copenhagen restaurant Noma, one of the world’s top eateries, with three Michelin stars, will close at the end of 2024 to reinvent itself as a food laboratory.

“To continue being Noma, we must change … Winter 2024 will be the last season of Noma as we know it,” the restaurant’s representatives wrote in a post on Instagram.

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‘Extreme event’: warm January weather breaks records across Europe

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At least eight countries experience record high temperatures of ‘almost unheard of’ heat, say meteorologists

Weather records have been falling across Europe at a disconcerting rate in the last few days, say meteorologists.

The warmest January day ever was recorded in at least eight European countries including Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia, according to data collated by Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks extreme temperatures.

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Rishi Sunak to meet UK troops in Estonia and attend Baltic summit

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UK prime minister joins Nordic and Baltic leaders at summit on countering Russian aggression

Rishi Sunak will meet UK troops in Estonia and Nordic and Baltic leaders at a summit on countering Russian aggression, where he will say leaders must sustain or exceed their lethal aid support to Ukraine and their political backing.

Monday’s meeting will come after the UK prime minister was reported to have unnerved some in Whitehall by asking for a “Goldman Sachs dashboard” on the progress of the war and how UK military supplies are used, according to the BBC.

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Danish government plans to scrap bank holiday to increase defence spending

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New coalition’s proposal to remove Great Prayer Day from calendar met with criticism by church and business owners

Denmark’s new government, the country’s first left-right coalition since the 1970s, has got off to an unpopular start with the announcement that one of its earliest policy proposals is to scrap a bank holiday.

The Social Democrat prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, appointed right-leaning political rivals as key ministers in her new reform-oriented government on Thursday, after close-run parliamentary elections last month.

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‘Gross sabotage’: traces of explosives found at sites of Nord Stream gas leaks

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Swedish prosecutor says ‘complex’ investigation and analysis continue to see if suspects can be identified

Traces of explosives have been found at the sites of September’s multiple leaks from the Nord Stream gas pipelines, confirming that the breaches were the result of sabotage, Sweden’s prosecution authority has said.

“Analysis that has now been carried out shows traces of explosives on several of the objects that were recovered” from the scene in the Baltic Sea, Mats Ljungqvist, the prosecutor leading the investigation, said on Friday.

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Denmark: British man being deported over late post-Brexit paperwork

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Phil Russell says he was four days overdue sending an application to stay he did not know he needed

A British man living in Denmark is being deported from the country because he was four days late with an application to stay there post-Brexit.

Danish MP Mads Fuglede is fighting to stop the deportation which he says is a breach of the spirit of the withdrawal agreement to protect EU citizens’ rights. However, following elections last week and with no new government in sight in Copenhagen, he is worried help may not come in time for Philip Russell.

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Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II celebrates 50 years on the throne

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The 82-year-old monarch rode in a carriage through Copenhagen and was joined by her family, despite recent public row with son

Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II rounded off celebrations marking her 50th year on the throne on Saturday, and was joined by her family despite a recent public row with her youngest son.

The 82-year-old monarch took a carriage ride through Copenhagen and attended a ceremony at city hall.

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Denmark election result keeps Social Democrats at the helm

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Mette Frederiksen, the incumbent PM, can form government though may face dilemma over picking leftwingers or moderates as partners

Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has won a nail-biting election that gave her left-leaning bloc a one-seat majority in parliament – but her pledge to build a broad left-right coalition may mean she struggles to form a stable government.

Exit polls on Tuesday night had suggested Frederiksen’s five-party “red” bloc would lose its majority in the 179-seat parliament, but as the last votes were counted early on Wednesday it became clear that it had secured 87 seats in mainland Denmark.

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Denmark election: Social Democrats lead but no majority, exit poll suggests

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Mette Frederiksen’s party predicted to have about 23% of vote, which could make former PM Løkke Rasmussen kingmaker

Prime minister Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats have finished first in Denmark’s election, exit polls have suggested, but neither the ruling left or rival right bloc are heading for a majority, setting up her predecessor and his new centrist party as kingmakers.

An exit poll by public broadcaster DR on Tuesday predicted that Frederiksen, who was forced to call the vote when an allied party withdrew support, had led the Social Democrats to a score of about 23%, nearly twice that of the second-placed Liberals.

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Truss says Nord Stream gas pipeline damage ‘clearly sabotage’

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Russia is suspected to have carried out explosions to put pressure on western energy supplies

Liz Truss has said a series of explosions that severely damaged Russia’s undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines were an act of sabotage.

In a joint report delivered to the United Nations last week, the Danish and Swedish governments have claimed that the leaks in the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which can carry gas to Germany, were caused by blasts equivalent to the power of “several hundred kilograms of explosive”.

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