EU Futures™: 'Denmark to Teach the EU Strenuousness on Migration'
According to Austrian state broadcaster ORF, if you're for high growth and cuts to administrative overhead, you're 'far right'
Found this gem™ and couldn’t resist.
Translation, emphases, and [snark (sighs)] mine.
Denmark to Teach the EU Strenuousness on Migration
For three years in a row, Vienna has held the title of ‘most liveable city in the world’ in the Economist ranking. This year no longer, as the Danish capital Copenhagen has taken the throne. Denmark, which takes over the EU Council presidency on 1 July, is also attracting many covetous glances: high growth, lean structures, hardly any asylum seekers. In the coming six months, Copenhagen will probably also want to urge its EU partners to be stricter in their asylum and migration policies.
Via [Austrian state broadcaster] ORF.at, 2 July 2025 [source; archive]
Formerly a very liberal [sic] country, Denmark has successively tightened its migration rules since the beginning of the millennium, and rapidly so since the wave of refugees in 2015. The Social Democrats, who were in opposition at the time, followed suit: Since her election as leader ten years ago, Mette Frederiksen has shifted her party far to the right [so…shrinking administrative overhead and high growth (relatively speaking) is now ‘far right’. Or whatever]. She has repeatedly described immigration from non-Western countries as Denmark’s ‘biggest challenge’. In 2019, she won the parliamentary election with statements like this [since elections are a kind of popularity contest, it looks like she’s not alone with these sentiments].
During the Danish Council Presidency, she now hopes to reach an EU consensus on outsourcing asylum procedures outside Europe and limiting the scope of European Court of Human Rights judgements. ‘We need new solutions to reduce the influx to Europe and effectively send back those who have no right to stay in our countries’, said Frederiksen.
Migration policy is linked to security [huhum, remember the ‘no-one is safe, unless everybody is safe’ trope?], said Danish European Affairs Minister Marie Bjerre at the presentation of the priorities for the EU Council Presidency last week:
That means we need a safer, more stable and more robust Europe, and that is not really the case if we do not control the flows into Europe.
Temporary Residence Permits
Refugees in Denmark receive a one-year residence permit, which can be extended. However, they are encouraged to return to their home country as soon as the authorities deem that they no longer need a safe haven. In 2020, Denmark made headlines when it revoked the residence permits of 200 Syrians. The reason given was that the situation in Damascus was so stable that returning posed no risk [so, now it’s even safer, right?].
In May, Denmark joined eight other European countries, including Austria, in seeking a reinterpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights to enable changes to migration policy, such as making it easier to expel foreign criminals [what a far right™, radical thought]. ‘We want to use our democratic mandate to start a new and open discussion on the interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights’, the letter states. ‘We need to restore the right balance.’
Competitiveness in the Global Elite [wait, there is such a ‘global elite’?]
Defence and security as well as competitiveness are among the other priorities of the Danish Presidency, which has the motto ‘A strong Europe in a changing world’. Ecological change goes ‘hand in hand’ with building a more secure and competitive Europe.
When it comes to competitiveness, Europe can certainly learn something from Denmark. In the recently published ‘World Competitiveness Ranking’ by the Lausanne-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD), Denmark ranked fourth as the best European country—Austria, by comparison, came 26th [here’s the Wikipedia piece about IMD: it was co-founded by Nestlé…].
‘Common Sense, Problem Awareness, and Courage’
Austria should also look to Denmark for inspiration when it comes to economic development and government efficiency, the Federation of Austrian Industries (IV) recently demanded. A lot can be learnt from ‘common sense, problem awareness, and courage at all levels there’, said IV Secretary General Christoph Neumayer.
Denmark has reorganised its administration over the past two decades and has since significantly reduced its government spending ratio from over 58% to 46.8% of gross domestic product (GDP). Austria’s spending ratio is more than 52% of GDP. According to the online platform Statista, real GDP growth in Denmark was around 3.7% in 2024 and is forecast to be around 2.9% this year. Austria could just manage to avoid a third consecutive year of recession in 2025.
Major Challenges
Denmark is therefore a model country within the EU in many respects, but the Council Presidency will certainly not be easy. The main challenges are likely to be the ongoing Hungarian blockade of EU accession negotiations with Ukraine and European cohesion in the customs dispute with the USA. There is also the threat of a dispute over money, as talks on the long-term EU budget from 2028 to the end of 2034 are due to begin in the coming months.
Bottom Lines
Oh, my, what is this now? This is the bloody extra-woke state broadcaster that’s now considering a mainstream labour party as ‘far right’.
Where will that nonsense stop? I suppose once the Maoists and Stalinists are also ‘far right’, that label will be returning to the other side of the political continuum and the stupidity will get another run. Who claims history isn’t cyclical?
These and other cheap quips aside, we also note that the top spot in that competitiveness ranking is held by—Switzerland, i.e., the one major European country that’s not in the EU (kinda). They, too, hand out temporary work and residency permits (green card equivalents) and, if you fail to hold up your language training requirements, will be deported. I suppose that the Swiss are also ‘far right’ in that sense.
I submit that, at this point in time, whoever wrote that nonsense is insane. Those who read this and believe the piece are perhaps doubly insane, but at the very least their right to vote should be subject to scrutiny.
Alas, nothing like this will happen in the near-term.
Thinkers like Aristotle and Plato were very well aware that democracy as a system of gov’t had severe drawbacks, esp. in terms of people voting for those who hand out free™ stuff.
We’re far beyond that point now: there are crushing tax burdens resting on Europeans, and there’s no more talk about any of the goodies of that kind: instead of, say, general welfare for the populace, the only thing one may now hope to achieve appears to be—feeling a bit less ‘far right’ for the time being. Or not being pilloried by voicing perfectly reasonable and sane policy propositions, such as deporting criminal foreigners without a residency permit.
As the saying goes, it’s always darkest just before the looting starts.
I'm afraid it's "the Swedish disease" in action. Danes have zero problems with either copying us when we're doing something clever, or doing the opposite of what Sweden's doing when we're doing something stupid.
Norway however has a "little brother"-complex that makes them try to out-do us instead (and we have the same vis-a-vis Germany). Since Swedish media has called the Danish Socialist Democrats "right-wing" for ca 20 years now, it was to be expected that Norwegian media would one-up us.
As for GDP, Sweden has been in what is technically speaking a recession since 2008. The reason things aren't worse is because we paid down the national debt so much in the 1990s.
A national debt that is to be increased by some 500 000 000 000 Euros over the course of the coming 5-10 years. Last time this nation was that deep into the bankers' pockets was right before the Thirty Years War...