Monday 31 March 2014

MARGRETHE II (2)

The Queen of Denmark has been on the throne since January 1972. Today she becomes the second longest serving monarch in Danish history, surpassed only by the seventeenth century Christian IV, the guy who built so many of Copenhagen's buildings. Coming to the throne as a boy, he reigned for 60 years, so Margrethe II has some way to go. Having said that, she seems in pretty good health, so it is not impossible that she will break the record.

Walter Blotscher

Sunday 30 March 2014

1814

This year will have a lot of anniversaries for Denmark, not least the psychological one of 1864 (see a later post). But today is a special one for a small minority of people; 200 years ago today, Denmark emancipated its Jews.

Legal emancipation didn't necessarily mean practical emancipation; Jews probably still suffered hassles of one kind or another, some petty, some not so petty. Nevertheless, it marked a major step forward for a people for whom official discrimination was a fact of life in many European countries.

Walter Blotscher

Saturday 29 March 2014

SILLY BANKS

Before the financial crisis, banks lent money to all sorts of silly things. Since the financial crisis, the pendulum has swung completely the other way, and they won't lend money to anything that isn't secured with belt and braces.

Our local cinema has a healthy turnover and makes money, despite having been through a major renovation project last summer. However, we now have a series of bills that have to be paid, notably our insurance, which has to be paid a whole year in advance. The normal course of action would be to get a small overdraft from the bank, secured by a mortgage on our building and equipment. However, the banks now have a rule that they won't lend under any circumstances to a club (even though we have good assets worth ten times the potential overdraft and are debt free), since nobody can give personal guarantees.

This is a silly rule. At some point, the pendulum will of course begin to swing back the other way again; but by that time, we won't need them.

Walter Blotscher

Thursday 27 March 2014

DET ER FORDI, AT ...

All languages have "filler" expressions, words that don't really mean anything, but which are used to fill out time, while the speaker thinks of something else to say. "Right" or "know what I mean" are examples in English.

The current one in Danish is "det er fordi, at ....", which Danes, particularly of the younger generation, use all the time. There are two things about this expression that puzzle this foreigner. The first is that it is grammatically incorrect. It literally means "it is because that ...". The "that" is redundant and grammatically wrong, and has become a sort of filler within the filler.

The second thing is that it is often used before a question; which is odd, because it is an active statement that ought to be followed by another active statement. Young people come up to me at school and say something like "it is because, that, er .... have you seen Julie?" or "it is because, that, er .... what time is our maths class?".

I have often told them to drop the "det er fordi, at" and use another expression, like "hej" (hello), or even nothing, on the grounds that what they are saying is - literally - inane. But so far, it is having zero effect. Det er fordi I am a foreigner, who just doesn't get it.

Walter Blotscher

Wednesday 26 March 2014

IDENTIFYING POLICEMEN

A recent trend in Denmark has been an increase in the number of complaints against the police. Not only individual cases, such as deaths in custody. Some of their more general actions, notably pre-emptive arrests before and during the big climate change conference in Copenhagen a number of years ago, have been deemed illegal by the courts.

In order to succeed, complainants have to be able to identify the policeman involved. In many countries such as the U.K., that can be done because policemen have an identification number on their uniforms. As is the case in Norway and Sweden.

But not in Denmark. This makes it difficult to complain, because the police are adept at not being able to find - definitively - the person involved. The Government has decided to introduce what seems an eminently sensible change, and give everybody an identification number. What is surprising is the vehemence with which the police union is resisting that change, and the increasing ridiculousness of the arguments they are using to support that resistance.

It is sometimes the case when you live in a foreign country that things can seem bizarre; this is one of them.

Walter Blotscher

Tuesday 25 March 2014

CHILD BENEFIT (3)

One of the good things about the newly reactivated debate about child benefit (and welfare benefits in general) is that more and more facts are being put on the table.

The latest concerns the total amount of money paid out by the state in the form of welfare benefits (child benefit, unemployment benefit, cash help and efterløn) to people from different countries. For Danes, it is on average kr.46.409, or about £5,000, a year. Top of the list are people from Somalia, Lebanon and Irak, who all receive kr.110-120,000. Many of these are refugees or asylum seekers, who do not earn, but live on welfare; you would expect the social cost of these people to be high.

What is interesting is the cost of people from other E.U. countries, and particularly those from the former Eastern Europe. For Poland it is kr.42.108, Romania kr.25.158, and for Ukraine kr.23.175. In other words, the average East European costs the Danish state less in welfare benefits than the average Dane.

Although these figures are averages, and so can mask large differences, the broad trend is clear. East Europeans, on average, come to Denmark to work; as such, the only welfare benefit they can expect to get is child benefit. When taxes are offset against this, the net benefit to Danish society will be positive.

Facts on the table should lead to a better class of debate. However, judging from the reaction to this latest lot, this is not going to happen.

Walter Blotscher

Sunday 23 March 2014

SHARP EDGES

If you have a lawn next to a wood (as I do), then you need to make sure that the boundary is clearly delineated. Woods are forever creeping up on you, so it's a way of telling them "this far, but no further".

Making a clear boundary was my task for the day. And since I have a lot of lawn and a lot of wood, it took me most of the day. But it is done. All that remains is for the wood to take heed.

Walter Blotscher

Saturday 22 March 2014

ASYLUM (2)

The number of asylum seekers in the rich world has risen sharply in recent years; Hungary, for instance, experienced a rise of 760% between 2012 and 2013. However, within that general trend, there are large differences. As I said earlier, Sweden takes many more asyslum seekers than Denmark, even though the two countries are in many ways similar. You would not think that, given the tide of anti-asylum rhetoric put out by Danish politicians. But the fact is that Denmark has fewer asylum seekers per million inhabitants than Cyprus, Austria, Belgium and even Montenegro. Top of the list in the period 2009-13 was Malta, which takes five times as many as Denmark.

As you might imagine, Syria tops the list of the countries providing asylum seekers; Iraq, Iran, Afghanisatn and Somalia are also in the top 10. But there are also some surprises. Russia was the second biggest country last year, and Serbia was number 5. People seek asylum for many reasons, and not just war or poverty.

Walter Blotscher

Friday 21 March 2014

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

One of the reasons why it has been so difficult to impose sanctions on Russia with respect to the Crimea issue is that Russia holds a major trump card; roughly a quarter of all the gas used in Europe comes from Russia, and in some E.U. countries such as the Baltic states, it is close to 100%. If I were President Putin, I would quietly watch what happens for the rest of 2014, and if things haven't changed the way I want by the time winter sets in, turn off the taps.

Russia has this card because Europe has seen Russian energy as a way of diversifying away from even more unsavoury regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere. Back in 1974, after the 1973 oil crisis, Europe's leaders vowed to reduce within 10 years the continent's dependence on imported energy from the then 63% to within 40% and 50%. Today, the figure is still about 63%, despite the whole North Sea story.

And therein lies a lesson for Denmark, a country both far away from Russia and one of the main beneficiaries of that North Sea story. Since 1996, Denmark has been self-sufficient in energy. But those days are now over; a marked fall of 17.7% in production in the North Sea last year pushed the self-sufficiency percentage down to 93%, a figure which will continue to fall in the future. From now on, Denmark will be much like any other European country.

True, Denmark has an ambitious renewables policy, which is designed to produce 50% of electricity by 2020. However, renewable energy is still very expensive, and additional burdens are the last thing the Danish high-cost economy needs.

It is also true that shutting off the gas taps would hurt Russia. But I suspect that President Putin would be able to handle his disaffected voters better than Denmark's Prime Minister would be able to handle her disaffected voters. European leaders are learning that playing hardball with the big boys will involve hard choices.

Walter Blotscher

Thursday 20 March 2014

FLIGHT TO THE CITIES

Denmark is undergoing a flight from the countryside to the cities. Of the country's 98 kommuner, 65 experienced a reduction in population during the period 2010-13. Furthermore, those worst affected are in "udkants Danmark", Denmark at the edge; the border with Germany, the western and northern coasts of Jutland, the southern part of Zealand, some of the islands. On Fünen, the island in the middle where I live, only the main town of Odense has grown, everywhere else has shrunk.

For those areas left behind, this represents a problem. Not least in the housing market; abandoned or derelict buildings, a mass of "for sale" signs. The map showing the kommuner with the greatest proportion of houses for sale mirrors almost exactly the population one. In the worst affected areas, up to one in twenty properties are for sale.

Kommuner get much of their revenues directly from income tax, so fewer people mean fewer revenues. At this week's local government conference, there was a call from the losers for a change to the redistribution law, so that more money is redistributed from the rich kommuner in Copenhagen and elsewhere to the kommuner out in the sticks. Not surprisingly, this call was rejected by the winners, who are doing very nicely, thank you.

Denmark has always put weight on social solidarity. The flight to the cities is putting pressure on this idea.

Walter Blotscher

Tuesday 18 March 2014

SPEED V. ACCESSIBILITY

In the modern world, everyone wants to be able to go everywhere. And they also want to be able to get there quickly. If you run a railway network, those two aims can clash.

Denmark has 284 railway stations. Some of these don't have very many passengers, and 19 have extremely few and should be closed, in the view of the Ministry of Transport. That way other passengers can get more quickly to their destination, since the trains wouldn't have to stop as often.

The problem is that these 19 stations are all in rural areas, where they are the main or only form of public transport. Closing them would undoubtedly make the network more efficient; but it would also accelerate the decline of rural life, which is a major problem here.

This is a difficult issue to get right at the best of times. Since times are not that, I suspect that the issue will be kicked into the long grass, and nothing will happen.

Walter Blotscher

Monday 17 March 2014

UKRAINE (4)

So the Russian majority in the Crimea voted to join Russia. That was not very surprising, the more interesting question is how the West is going to deal with the outcome.

What they shouldn't do in my view is bang on about how the vote was somehow not a real vote. A week was not long enough to debate the issues, there was a massive Russian military presence, and so on. The first is ridiculous; we in the West may have only had a week to debate the issues, but I suspect that the people of the Crimea have been talking about little else, either for or against, since 1954. And on the second, there has always been a massive Russian military presence in the Crimea, both before and after 1954, not least because Sevastopol is the main base for the Russian Black Sea fleet. I am not saying that the election was perfect - what election ever is? But it seems very clear that a large majority of the people living in the Crimea both feel Russian, want to be part of Russia, and don't want to be part of Ukraine. If that was good enough for the West in the case of Kosovo, shouldn't it be enough now?

What the West should concentrate on instead is the status and condition of the minority who didn't and don't want to be part of Russia, and who probably didn't vote yesterday at all. Democracy - everywhere - is the tyranny of the majority, and the key to making it work is not that the majority gets what it wants, but that the minority accepts the result and can live with it. In the case of Crimea, some will never accept the result and will want to move to Ukraine; if so, they should be helped. For those that remain, their rights should be protected.

In imposing sanctions today, the E.U. and the U.S. say that they are putting pressure on Russia to come back to the table and negotiate a solution to the problem. What they mean by "solution" is a return of the Crimea to Ukraine. But that is the one thing that is not going to happen; Russia is not going to give up a province which in its view should never have been transfered in 1954. It would be better for all involved if the West accepted the return to the status quo ante, and took things forward from there. Sadly, I don't think that is going to happen.

Walter Blotscher

Sunday 16 March 2014

CHILD BENEFIT (2)

The argument about child benefit has now spread to all sorts of other benefits. In some ways this is not surprising; the idea of foreigners coming to Denmark in order to scrounge benefits is compelling to the average citizen, even if it is not based on fact. One troublesome fact is that more child benefit is paid to Danes living in Sweden and Germany alone than is paid by the Danish authorities to people from all other E.U. countries. In other words, even on a strict "what do we pay out, what do we get?" calculation, Denmark is way ahead. And, as I said before, this ignores what the foreign worker contributes in taxes to the Danish state.

The problem with all this is that there is a European election coming up in May, and people tend to vote with their hearts, not with their heads. As things stand, the very right-wing Danish People's Party is set to hoover up lots of votes from people fed up with the E.U. Similar patterns are likely in other countries. This, in my view, is not a good thing.

Walter Blotscher

Saturday 15 March 2014

AN UNNECESSARY INVESTMENT (3)

The people and big machines have finished the work that will affect our property. But they are far from completing the whole job. According to the engineer in charge, the 16 or so households involved (I originally thought the project covered just our street, but it affects some other isolated houses as well) require more than 5km of piping. Plus there is a pumping station in the wood, manholes, and various other stuff.

But perhaps the worse thing is that it is not needed. I talked to my neighbour this morning, who is an engineer. He told me that the existing septic tanks (where the eventual run-off goes into the wood) cleans to about 94% pure water. Connecting us to the public system doesn't make the water 100% pure, it merely raises it to about 97% pure. That's a very expensive, and unnecessary, 3% improvement.

Walter Blotscher

Friday 14 March 2014

MY MOUTH

My wife is often pointing out to me that I have something on the edge of my mouth; biscuit crumbs, for example or a smear of marmelade. Since I don't think that I have any trouble eating, my latest theory is that the shape of my mouth has something to do with it.

And so today I had a close look at it. In the mirror and with my glasses on. It's an ordinary sort of mouth in my opinion, but it is also the case that it has two small creases in the corners. Not big enough to make eating difficult, but big enough to catch the odd crumb or two if I am not careful. Which I promise to try and be in the future.

Walter Blotscher

Thursday 13 March 2014

UKRAINE (3)

One word has been surprisingly absent from so-called informed discussion of Ukraine and the possible secession of the Crimea to Russia. That word is Kosovo.

When the Yugoslav Federation broke up in the early 1990's, Kosovo was part of what became the new country of Serbia. However, being ethnically Albanian, Kosovo wanted to break away from Serbia, and become independent. When it duly (and unilaterally) declared independence, that independence was supported by nearly all E.U. countries and the U.S., even though Serbia (and Russia) objected vehemently.

Swap the Soviet Union for the Yugoslav Federation, Ukraine for Serbia and the Crimea for Kosovo and it seems to me to be pretty much the same situation. Their populations are roughly the same, around 2 million. True, Kosovo was roughly 90% ethnic Albanian, whereas the Crimea is "only" about 60% ethnic Russian. But apart from that, what's different other than it is the West that is objecting and Russia supporting?

Walter Blotscher

Wednesday 12 March 2014

ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEWS

Ultra-orthodox Jewish men don't do very much except study religious texts. They are also very conservative, which leads to large families in which the wife often stays at home and does not work. That combination puts heavy pressure on the Israeli welfare state. From about 400 or so when Israel was created in 1948, the ultra-Orthodox have grown to around 800,000, roughly 10% of the population.

Secular Israelis are fed up with this drain on their resources. In particular, they are fed up with the exemption from obligatory military service, which is given to the ultra-Orthodox.The obligation is a heavy one, three years for men and two for women; and applies to virtually all other Israelis. A recently passed law will gradually remove the exemption for all but a few "gifted scholars"; ultra-Orthodox who refuse to comply will be subject to criminal sanctions, including prison. The ultra-Orthodox are up in arms.

This is the first stage in what is likely to become an increasingly bitter fight between secular and ultra-Orthodox Israelis. On the one side is the majority, who think that a population with a 10% deadweight is both ridiculous and unsustainable. On the other is a minority, who believe passionately that the study of religious texts is a key part of Jewish culture and heritage. The result of that fight will determine Israeli society for many years to come.

Walter Blotscher

Monday 10 March 2014

A GOOD DAY

I had a good day today. I didn't think it would be, since my E-Mail crashed on Thursday afternoon, and technical support were completely absent during the weekend. When I finally got through this morning, it turned out that my Outlook had been infected with a virus, causing the E-Mail operator to shut down my account. So I had to clean up my computer, which took three hours, and then wade through an obstacle course of technical problems involving new passwords. Come 13.30 pm and I still hadn't achieved anything.

However, things went up from then on. First, I discovered that I had bagged both of the busy little moles making trouble under the front and back lawns. After burying them in strategic places in the tunnel system, I tidied up the lawns and then gave them their first mow of the year. It was 16-18 degrees in Denmark today, so nice mowing weather. Then I rang my Mum, who was very well. Finally, I went out and played a very satisfying game of badminton.

All in all, a very good day.

Walter Blotscher

Sunday 9 March 2014

MORE RULES

Here's the latest rule applied to Danish agriculture, an economic powerhouse.

Any contiguous pieces of land which are more than 2,000 m2 (roughly half an acre) in area, and have a slope of 12% or more, cannot be prepared (i.e. ploughed or harrowed) from the date of harvest until 1 March in the following year.

The "Alp rule" is designed to prevent accidents from tractors overturning, and such like, and it exists in other countries. However, the ban comes into force much later - 15 September in Sweden, 1 December in north Germany, for instance - which gives farmers a chance to plough and sow before the autumn.

Why 12% and 2,000 m2 is however a bit of a mystery. Presumably though, it gives employment to bureaucrats.

Walter Blotscher

Saturday 8 March 2014

THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST (4)

This evening I watched the Danish competition to choose the country's entry for this year's Eurovision song contest. I hadn't particularly wanted to; but since my mother-in-law had invited me for dinner beforehand and wanted to watch it, it seemed churlish not to.

This year's competition had added spice, since Denmark will be hosting the main event in May, having won it in Sweden a year ago. Despite that incentive, I thought most of the ten songs either poor or dreadful. However, while that is pretty par for the course, what was surprising was that nine of the ten were sung in English. Denmark tends to hold the local competition in Danish, and then translate the winning song into English for the international event. This time nobody seemed to bother, yet another example of English's increasing dominance in the music world.

Walter Blotscher

Friday 7 March 2014

WHERE DID WINTER GO?

There's been hardly any snow in Denmark this year. True, there have been storms, and a lot of trees have come down. But that means that it has been wet, rather than cold.

And now it seems that winter is over. This weekend and next week it will be between 12 and 14 degrees, unusually mild for this time of year. Time to get the bike out and get rid of those extra Christmas pounds.

Walter Blotscher

Thursday 6 March 2014

UKRAINE (2) 

European and other leaders are getting very hot under the collar about the proposed succession of the Crimea from Ukraine to Russia. There is lots of talk about sovereignty and territorial integrity. Russia is being a bad boy.

I am not usually a big fan of the Russians (except when they are playing ice hockey), but on this question, I have to admit I have some sympathy for their position. Nobody knows exactly why the Soviet Union transfered the province from the Russian Federation to the Ukrainian Republic in 1954; the story goes that Khrushchev, who was born on the Russian-Ukraine border and ran Ukraine in the early part of his career, ordered it transfered while he was drunk. But the fact of the matter is that it has not been Ukrainian for very long (to be frank, neither has Ukraine itself), before the transfer it had been firmly Russian since the time of Peter the Great, the Sevastopol naval base is the Russians' key military installation on the Black Sea (and the Russians have rights there), and the Crimea's population is more than 50% ethnic Russian. In an era where people continually trumpet self-determination, that seems a fairly persuasive combination.

Returning to the status quo ante-1954 seems to me a fairly small price to pay for solving what could end up being a right, bloody mess. However, I fully expect it to garner zero support in the capitals of the western world.

Walter Blotscher

Wednesday 5 March 2014

BURIAL RULES

Readers of this blog will know that Denmark is a country full of rules, not all of which I can see the point of. So it is nice to be able to report a relaxation of the rules in one area, which will affect us all.

Until today you were not allowed to bury people (either a body in a coffin or an urn of ashes) anywhere other than in religiously consecrated ground. So when my wife asked me where I would like to be buried, and I said "I would like to be cremated and have the ashes buried under the apple tree in the garden", she told me that that was a no no.

Now, however, local authorities are allowed to establish burial sites in places such as forests. Not coffins, but urns with ashes in them.

A modest change, but a good one in my view.

Walter Blotscher

Monday 3 March 2014

U.K. IMMIGRATION (2)

The U.K. Government has a totally unrealistic target of bringing down net migration from 252,000 in 2010 to the "tens of thousands" by 2015.

The latest figures, for the year to September 2013, show that it rose from 154,000 to 212,000. One reason was a marked increase in immigration by E.U. citizens, from 149,000 to 209,000.

Because of E.U. law, the latter figures are totally outside the Government's control. Furthermore, they reflect life before the relaxation of the restrictions on immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria on 1 January this year. As I say, the target is totally unrealistic.

Walter Blotscher

Sunday 2 March 2014

ARVINGERNE

Arvingerne ("the Inheritors") is a new Danish 10-part TV series, which has just finished this evening. Judging by the viewing figures, it has been very successful, and looks set to be both repeated and exported to other countries.

The artist matriarch of a complicated (four children by three different men) and dysfunctional family dies, and the key question becomes, in a situation where her will is not particularly clear, who gets the house where she lived and produced her work? As you might expect, there are lots of plot twists and turns. But as with the Killing and Borgen, it is very well scripted and acted. Worth watching.

The legal profession has said that since the series started at the beginning of January, the number of enquiries about how to write a will has shot up. If nothing else, the series will have demonstrated the folly of not doing so.

Walter Blotscher

Saturday 1 March 2014

GS ELEVATOR GOSSIP

@GSElevator is a scurrilous, and often very funny, tweet, which purports to repeat things said in the elevators at Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs management were so worried that the tweets were being written by a current employee, that they instituted a formal ban of silence in their elevators!

This week the writer of GS Elevator Gossip has been outed. It turns out that he is a bond trader from Texas, who has never worked for Goldman Sachs.

It's a shame that everyone now knows who he is. I hope it won't stop him tweeting.

Walter Blotscher