Only in Denmark

URL: http://www.metroxpress.dk/nyheder/brn-i-hobetal-ngtes-familiesammenfring/KObkfB!C4PJ6NiGjGZ/

Children under 15 year old are denied family reunification with their parents residing in Denmark because Immigration service asseses that these children could not be “succesfully integrated”. The refusals are unobjective says integration experts. SF demands an explanation from Integration Minister Søren Pind (V)

The case of 12-year old Sirapat who was denied family reunification with his Thailand mother residing iN Denmark caused a stir among the politicians last March this year. A case that MetroXpress is following since Sirapat said goodbye to his family at the Copenhagen airport.

The reason was – according to the Immigration Service – Sirapat did not have the chance to be “successfully integrated”.

As MetroXpress has earlier reported, Venstre’s Eyvind Vesselbo is into the case, just like EU-parliament member Jens Rohde (V) was agitated by the case that he asked the EU comission to assess whether Denmark lives up to its international obligations in the case.

Now it seems that Sirapat’s case was not the only one. Children under 12 and 15 years are denied family reunification with one or both parents in Denmark because they couldn’t be “successfully integrated”

35 rejections with this reason were made by the Immigration service in 2005 for children under 12 years old and that corresponds to a rejection for every 5th application. In 2010, the number increases to 96 and this corresponds to half of the applicants were rejected due to the same reason. The same pattern is visible for children under 15 years old. This comes from a statement from the Immigration Service Søren Pind (V) about the Sirapat case.

Katrine Vitus, expert in integration of children in Denmark and sociologist at the National Research Center for Welfare (SFI), thinks that it’s unobjective that Immigration Service refuses to give family reunification for children under 12 years to a parent living here in Denmark under the reason that the child doesn’t have the chance to be “successfully integrated”

»One can’t assess whether a child at 12 year old can be integrated. I have difficulty to see whether these can be judges from objective criterias,« she said and added:

»I see it more like it’s more political step to be restrictive on the number of people one wants to welcome in the country. This is the reason why someone found the name “not integrateable”

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/world/europe/25denmark.html?_r=1

COPENHAGEN — Ten years ago, as Denmark joined the European Union’s visa-free open travel zone, the outraged Danish People’s Party bought a decommissioned border guardhouse, vowing that one day it would be in use again.

Back then, most Danes dismissed the move as a colorful publicity stunt by the newly formed right-wing party.

But last month, the Danish People’s Party was doing a victory dance, offering to donate its picturesque brick guardhouse at the German border to the government. The party had achieved its goal: Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen had agreed to restore 24-hour customs control in exchange for support on a difficult budget package.

The deal set off an outcry in the European Union as tiny Denmark became the first member to seriously challenge the union’s crowning achievement: the free movement of goods and services across borders.

Italy and France, wrangling over a huge influx of immigrants from North Africa, have been pushing for a lesser step — the ability to temporarily close borders in an emergency. This got the official nod of approval during a meeting of European leaders on Friday.

What will happen in Denmark remains less clear. The Danish Parliament has yet to ratify its border deal, and the union has issued a stern warning, saying Denmark’s plans are probably incompatible with its “obligations under European and international law.”

But experts say the situation in Denmark, where support for the far right has risen steadily over the past decade, is part of a worrying trend for the European Union. Small nationalist parties in many European countries, determinedly anti-immigrant and anti-European Union, are leveraging important changes in policies.

“It is something that we are seeing across the European Union,” said Fredrik Erixon, the director of the European Center for International Political Economy in Brussels.

Mr. Erixon and other experts say these populist parties have succeeded in producing a serious assault on the European Union’s principal institutions: the euro zone and free trade across open borders.

In Italy, for instance, legislation was passed recently to designate certain Italian companies as strategic and prevent their foreign takeover.

In Finland, the populist True Finn Party won 19 percent of the vote in April when it campaigned on the promise to oppose any further contributions to bailing out euro zone countries.

In the Netherlands, the far-right Freedom Party is credited with pulling that country away from its historically pro-Europe stance. In recent months, as euro zone officials have fought to steady markets in the face of a possible default by Greece, a Dutch government that relies on the openly anti-European Union party has fiercely opposed expanded powers for the union’s bailout fund.

“For decades, the E.U. had been moving ever closer to an overarching cooperation,” Mr. Erixon said. “But what we are seeing now is a reversal in the overall trend. Some of the E.U.’s crown jewels are under attack.”

In Denmark, political analysts say the Danish People’s Party has not only drawn more and more voters since it was founded in 1998, getting 13 percent of the vote in 2007, but it has also pulled more mainstream parties to the right as they try to win those voters back, a phenomenon that experts say has occurred in many other countries.

Prof. Marlene Wind, a political scientist at the University of Copenhagen, said that with new elections likely in the next few months, only one small party, the Social Liberal Party, initially spoke out against the border deal. “Hardly anyone said anything because they think it might get them voters back from the D.P.P.,” Professor Wind said.

Much of the support for the far right in Denmark comes from the working class, which chafed the most at ultraliberal immigration policies that allowed thousands of immigrants — from Iran, Iraq and the Balkans — to enter the country in the 1970s, ’80 and ’90s.

Denmark had few policies in place to deal with the immigrants’ needs, experts say. Blue-collar Danes resented that many newcomers in their neighborhoods never learned Danish and remained unemployed, clustered in the suburbs of Copenhagen.

While mainstream parties avoided the subject as politically incorrect, the Danish People’s Party, led by Pia Kjaersgaard, a home care attendant for the elderly before she entered politics, took it on. Ms. Kjaersgaard is widely credited with forcing an overhaul of the country’s immigration policies, now among the most restrictive in Europe.

Many of her supporters are like Rene Schultz, a 42-year-old furniture mover from Ishoj who is wistful for simpler times and blames immigrants for a rise in crime, though official statistics do not support this claim.

“We need to close the borders,” Mr. Schultz said. “And if they throw us out of the European Union, that’s fine with me. There was a robbery here just last week. The old people are afraid to go out.”

Martin Henriksen, the party’s spokesman for social issues, said that for a country to survive, its people must share values and customs. He predicted that Sweden would fall apart because so many immigrants were living there. And he called the European Union’s objections to the border deal absurd. “If we throw someone out of the country because he is a criminal, he can turn around and walk back in,” Mr. Henriksen said. “That is ridiculous.”

Just how much more Europe’s nationalist parties can grow is an open question. The Danish People’s Party alienated many of its supporters when it signed on to the budget deal, which called for an overhaul of the pension system in order to save costs.

For the moment, the Danish government continues to say that it will move forward with its agreement to have a 24-hour presence at its borders. Currently, drivers from Germany and Sweden can pass into Denmark without taking their feet off the accelerator, except for the occasional toll.

But all that may change. Under the plan, Denmark would add about 100 customs officials, install or restore guardhouses, set up video cameras and construct special lanes where cars can be detained. Boom gates and stop signs have already been purchased.

These moves, officials insist, are not in violation of the European Union’s open border policy, the so-called Schengen agreement. For a while, Denmark’s tax minister, Peter Christensen, insisted that six other countries in the bloc had already done what the government was proposing. But by the end of last week, that claim had been disproved.

The mistake was just the latest embarrassment for the Liberal-Conservative government, which has faced protests from Swedish and German officials — and a spate of biting comedy show material. For some Danes, the low point was watching a recent skit on a Jon Stewart-style show in Germany.

It featured a newsman at the German border with Denmark, a newly installed boom gate blocking the road. In the background, a luckless German who had strayed into Danish territory was being gunned down.

“There we were being made fun of by the Germans,” said Professor Wind, who is appalled at the government’s willingness to bargain with the Danish People’s Party. “In Denmark, we don’t think of the Germans as even having a sense of humor, but this is completely on the spot and very funny. It’s so embarrassing.”

URL: http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE1314121/police-raid-copenhagen-hotel/

Officers looking for illegals at Copenhagen hotel

Police raided a Copenhagen hotel on Vesterbrogade this morning to check whether the foreigners staying at the hotel were legally in Denmark.

Police say the raid, which began at 6 a.m., is the result of an increasing number of illegals in the country.

Although the Hotel Vester Bo on Vesterbrogade does not appear to offer rooms for let, police say they have been told that day-to-day lets take place at the 76-room hotel, particularly to foreigners.

It is the second time that police have raided the hotel. On May 27 last year a similar raid netted some 35 Romanians, one of whom proved to be responsible for several break-ins north of Copenhagen.

URL: http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE1314183/fewer-seek-family-reunions-to-denmark/

The introduction of fees and more difficult tests has halved the number of applications.

The introduction at the beginning of the year of charges and stiffer tests in order to achieve family reunions for foreigners to Denmark, has halved the number of applications according to Immigration Service figures.

In recent years, and until the New Year 2011, the service received some 5-600 applications per month, a figure that has now dropped to some 300 after Parliament introduced two sets of changes in 2010. Language and knowledge tests were made more difficult and a DKK 6,000 fee was introduced from January 1, 2011.

According to Senior Researcher Eva Ersbøll of the Institute for Human Rights, both Germany and the Netherlands – who introduced similar requirements a couple of years ago – have experienced a drop in reunion applications of between 25 and 40 per cent.

“If you invest in an application, you also have to believe that you can get through the test. In Germany and the Netherlands there has been a self-selection in which those who apply are primarily young people and those who have a better level of education,” Ersbøll says.

The drop in applications comes as the government and the Danish People’s Party agreement on even stiffer requirements is due to take effect on July 1.

Language and knowledge tests are to become more difficult, the fees are to increase, a guarantee of DKK 100,000 has to be deposited, attachment requirements are to be tightened and a new points system is to be introduced.

“After July 1 it will, if possible, be even more difficult to achieve family reunion – so we are urging people to apply now,” says Marriage without Borders Chairman Lars Kyhnau Hansen, adding that the new requirements will result in ‘something close to a total stop’ in applications from foreigners living in Denmark.

Government exaggerating
The Danish Refugee Council says the new rules are not necessary.

“The stiffer requirements have flooded in over the past 10 years and have meant that the number of those who have achieved family reunions has fallen dramatically. Last year, there were only some 300 foreigners living in Denmark who achieved reunions for their spouses, while the figure for ethnic Danes was 3,000. With such low figures, we fail to see a major problem that the government has to resolve,” DRC Section Manager Mette Blauenfeldt says.

The Danes Worldwide Association, which represents the interests for thousands of Danes abroad, is also critical.

“There has been enough tightening. It is one thing that the government wants to keep foreigners out of Denmark. But when it also affects Danes who, for example, have lived for years abroad and would like to repatriate their foreign spouses, then it is unreasonable,” DWA Board Chairman Ambassador Christopher Bo Bramsen says.

The Liberal Party Integration Spokesman Karsten Lauritzen says the rules improve the level of applicants.

“(The rules) are not only being introduced to limit reunions. When we get better applicants, we also get people who are better prepared for integration,” Lauritzen says.

Last year, two in three applications were accepted. The figure is the same so far this year.

URL:http://cphpost.dk/news/politics/51838-secret-immigration-proposals-remain-a-mystery.html

Immigration minister argues that details of the proposals are government secrets

Two of Immigration Minister Søren Pind’s proposed policy changes that were rejected by the Justice Ministry remain secret despite efforts by the left-wing to reveal what they entail.

Pind told parliament in late May that he had consulted the Justice Ministry on three proposed changes, and while they allowed him to proceed with the proposal to favour immigration requests from selected countries, the other two were rejected.

Opposition politicians are now trying to discover what these rejected proposals consist of, but Pind is unwilling to divulge any details.

“I think it’s strange that the politics of the government are kept secret. Søren Pind wanted to implement those two proposals and the only abandoned them because he was told to,” said Johanne-Schmidt Nielsen from the Red-Green Alliance.

Nielsen expressed regret at Pind’s decision not to reveal what the proposals were after declining a parliamentary request for information.

“Although Pind was stopped by the Justice Ministry in connection with the two proposals, it’s important that for us to know what the political standpoint of our government is and what it wishes to accomplish,” she said.

Pind, however, considers the rejected proposals to be government secrets.

“I consider it legislative work that the government is entitled to keep in peace,” he told Politiken newspaper.

But Henrik Dam Kristensen from the Social Democrats rejected Pind’s arguments.

“I understand that a minister needs to be able to deliberate without the public being able to see his considerations. But in cases like this where he has been active in the negotiations and has himself brought up the two rejected proposals, then he opened the floodgates on himself and ought to publish them.”

The Justice Ministry has also refused to reveal to Politiken the telephone correspondence between themselves and the Immigration Ministry when negotiating the third proposal to favour immigrants from particular countries.

While the Justice Ministry initially raised questions over whether it could be reconciled with existing discrimination laws and international conventions on human rights, they ultimately allowed Pind to proceed with it.

Pind defended the legislation during a debate in parliament by referring to Germany and the Netherlands, both of which according to him have similar discriminatory policies.

URL: http://cphpost.dk/component/content/51831.html?task=view

Recent cases raise questions over how far entitlement to free expression can be taken

The right to speak one’s mind, regardless of what it is you have to say, is normally defended as the ultimate right in Denmark, but two incidents in recent weeks illustrate that the urge to control what experts say is still a temptation.

Most will remember that when protests broke out in 2005 over the publication by Jyllands-Posten newspaper of 12 drawings of the prophet Mohammed, including one with a bomb in his turban, politicians from across the political spectrum in Denmark staunchly defended the cartoonist and newspaper’s right to do so.

Even as Danish products were boycotted in Islamic countries and the embassy in Damascus was torched, politicians argued that upholding this right was more important than bowing to pressure for the sake of security.

Among those politicians was Liberal MP Inger Støjberg, who stated on TV2 News in 2008, after the cartoons were published a second time, that, “I think it’s disgraceful that they are able to silence people with threats. I support the right of the Danish artists to express their freedom of speech.”

And last year, when the newspaper Politiken published an apology for offence caused after it too published the cartoon, Pia Kjærsgaard from the Danish People’s Party (DF) attacked.

“It is deeply, deeply embarrassing that [Politiken's editor] Tøger Seidenfaden has sold out Denmark and the West’s freedom of speech. I cannot distance myself enough from this total sellout to this doctrine,” Kjærsgaard said.

Last week, however, University of Copenhagen professor Marlene Wind, an expert on European politics who has frequently been called upon to offer her view about plans to reinstate border controls, called the measures ‘electioneering’ and an appeal to the voter’s ‘inner brute’.

Wind’s position touched a nerve with DF, whose proposed border controls were granted by the government in return for support in their welfare and early retirement reforms.

Wind was called upon for her opinion on whether the new border controls violated the Schengen agreement.  She said it did and then questioned the DF’s real motivation for demanding the new controls – that with an election on the horizon, they were less to keep out criminal foreigners than to appeal to the fears of the lowest common denominator.

Appearing on DR2’s Deadline, Kjærsgaard said that Wind’s statements, “were not expert opinion, but political opinion”. And when Politiken asked Kjærsgaard whether Wind was correct to say her party was responsible for the uproar that has emerged, she said: “I say what I think is right to say as a politician, it’s not up to Marlene Wind to judge me. It is not her vocation. She needs to join a political party and become a politician.”

The immigration minister, Søren Pind, also criticised Wind and suggested that ethical guidelines be established to control what experts quoted in the media may and may not say. The message was that experts should be providers of impartial information and not commentate or cast judgment in areas not directly related to their field.

Another expert finding himself in trouble in recent weeks after expressing his opinion was Tue Magnussen, who was fired from his position at the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims after writing an article for left-wing news website Modkraft.dk.

The article was critical of the lack of public outrage during Russian Prime Minister Putin’s recent visit to Denmark. He was subsequently dismissed by his organisation for not making it clear that he was not writing on their behalf.

Citing confidentiality requirements, the RCT declined to discuss the details of Magnussens dismissal, but other Danish humanitarian organisations told The Copenhagen Post that the rights of employees in speaking publicly are not always well defined.

Lene Linde, head of human resources for the Red Cross in Denmark, said their organisation had no explicit policies in place to guide its employee’s public remarks.

“Our experts have to work according to our seven fundamental principles, such as impartiality and neutrality. We try to be very open with our position. But I think its hard to make a policy about it because of it really depends on the context in which something is said,” she said.

Public relations employees from similar organisations said they were unsure as to exactly what their rights were and even whether these rights were defined in their contracts.

Erik Østergaard-Nielsen, of law firm Selskabsadvokaterne, said it was uncommon for employees in Danish organisations to be contractually obligated to seek permission to speak publicly.

“I would say that except for chief executives it would be rare for employees to have these types of clauses in their contracts,” he said.

“It’s not a problem really perhaps because corporations in Denmark aren’t that large. Because of this there tend to be tight social bonds between management and employees so it’s rare to have a situation where there’s conflict between them.”

He added, “In Denmark we have a consensus culture and so I think if an employee spoke out it would affect their future employment because they would become less employable.”

But whereas those in the private and charity sector seem to lack clear rules, state employees do have more specific guidelines to work with. When speaking in a personal capacity, public employees may engage in public debate even when it concerns their own line of work without having to ask for permission from management.

Even without clear guidelines, article 77 of the Danish Constitution protects individuals rights to free speech without reprisal, stating: “Everyone is entitled in print, speech and writing to publish their thoughts and are only responsible to the courts. Censorship and other preventative measures shall never again be introduced.”

The Wind and Magnussen cases show that the debate over the extent to which individuals are entitled to express their opinion without reprisal is far from settled.

Kjærsgaard and the DF supported free speech as an unassailable doctrine in the case of offensive drawings of a religious figure, but believe that opinions of experts quoted in the media should be restricted. And while Pind demands new regulations on expert testimony be implemented, non-public organisations in Denmark are hesitant to clearly outline the rights of their employees to speak out, perhaps because the Danish consensus-culture in itself already encourages self-censorship.

The two cases, while distinct, raise questions about what limitations can be placed on voicing a public opinion. Free speech is already limited in the case of libel and Kjærsgaard does not dismiss the rights of experts to speak, only that not all people can be considered expertly positioned to take part in political dialogue. Both cases demonstrate that while the constitution guarantees a right to free speech, there still exists a philosophical debate in Denmark about how ‘free’ our voices should be.

URL: http://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-us/News/News/danish_immigration_service/2011/Juni/new-family-reunification-rules.htm

New family reunification rules

On 1 June 2011, the Danish Parliament changed the rules for family reunification for spouses/partners. 

In the course of June 2011, detailed information about the rules for family reunification for spouses/partners will be published here on newtodenmark.dk, along with new application forms.

The new rules apply to all applications for family reunification with a spouse/partner submitted from 1 July 2011.

The changes are as follows:

• If the spouse/partner residing in Denmark is a foreign national, he/she must meet some of the requirements which are to be met when applying for a permanent residence permit. These requirements must also be met if the spouse/partner residing in Denmark has been granted a permanent residence permit under the rules which applied before 26 March 2010. Consequently, when the Danish Immigration Service receives an application for family reunification with a spouse/partner, it will assess whether the spouse/partner residing in Denmark can be given points for the following criteria:
1. having resided legally in Denmark for at least the past four years
2. not having committed any serious crimes
3. not having any overdue public debts
4. not having received certain types of public assistance for the past three years
5. having submitted a signed declaration about integration and active citizenship in Danish society
6. having passed Prøve i Dansk 2 (Danish exam, level 2) or the equivalent
7. having had ordinary full-time employment in Denmark for at least 2½ out of the past 3 years
8. a. having had ordinary full-time employment in Denmark for at least 4 out of the past 4½ years, or
   b. having completed a higher educational programme, professional bachelor’s degree, business academy or vocational upper secondary, or
   c. having passed Prøve i Dansk 3 (Danish exam, level 3) or the equivalent
• A point system for the applicant will be introduced. If both spouses/partners are over 24, the applicant must normally obtain 60 points. If one or both spouses/partners are under 24, the applicant must normally obtain 120 points. These points will be granted based on a number of qualifications relevant to integration, such as work experience, language skills and completed education.
• The attachment requirement is tightened so that the spouses’/partners’ combined attachment to Denmark must be considerably greater than their combined attachment to any other country. The attachment requirement will be changed for both the spouse/partner residing in Denmark and the foreign spouse/partner. In future, the foreign spouse/partner must normally have visited Denmark twice, and must have completed a Danish language course on A1 level. The spouse/partner residing in Denmark must normally have resided in Denmark for at least 15 years, and must have made an effort to integrate into Danish society. As is the case today, the attachment requirement in not to be met if the spouse/partner residing in Denmark has held Danish citizenship for over 28 years, or if he/she was born and raised in Denmark or came to Denmark as a small child, and has resided legally in Denmark for over 28 years.
• The collateral requirement will be raised to DKK 100,000 (2011 level)
• The language requirement in connection with the immigration test will be tightened, and the fee for taking the new test will be raised to DKK 3,600. (This change will not apply until the new immigration test has been developed – probably around 1 January 2012.)
• The fee for submitting an application for family reunification with a spouse/partner is raised from DKK 5,975 to DKK 7,775.

From 1 July 2011, when the new rules apply, the general requirements for family reunification with a spouse/partner will be as follows:

Requirements relating to both spouses/partners:

• The marriage/registered partnership must be recognized by Danish law.
• In the case of couples who are not legally married or registered partners, the relationship must be of a permanent and lasting nature – normally, the couple must be able to document that they have lived together for at least 18 months at a shared address.
• The marriage/partnership must have been entered into according to the wishes of both spouses/partners.
• The marriage/partnership must not have been entered into solely for the purpose of obtaining a residence permit for the applicant.

Requirements relating to the foreign spouse/partner:

• The foreign spouse/partner must meet his/her part of the attachment requirement.
• The foreign spouse/partner must obtain 60 points if both spouses/partners are over 24, or 120 if one or both are under 24.
• The foreign spouse/partner must pass the immigration test.

Requirements relating to the spouse/ partner residing in Denmark:

• The spouse/partner must not have been convicted of violent acts against a former spouse/partner in the past 10 years.
• The spouse/partner must agree to support the foreign spouse/partner
• The spouse/partner must either hold a Danish residence permit granted on the grounds of asylum or Protected Status (the Danish Aliens Act, section 7 and 8) or have held a permanent Danish residence permit for the past three years or more.
• If the spouse is a foreign citizen, he/she must meet a number of the requirements for obtaining a permanent residence permit.
• The spouse/partner must meet his/her part of the attachment requirement.
• The spouse/partner must be able to support him/herself – that is, he/she must not have received public assistance under the terms of the Active Social Policy Act or the Integration Act for the past three years.
• The spouse/partner must have accommodation of adequate size at his/her disposal.
• The spouse/partner must post DKK 100,00 (2011 level) in bank-backed collateral to cover any public assistance paid to the foreign spouse/partner under the terms of the Active Social Policy Act or the Integration Act. As is the case now, there will be a possibility in certain cases.

Read more about the present rules for dispensation.

For more information please contact the Danish Immigration Service on tel. +45 35 30 88 88.

URL: http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE1312552/dpp-germany-a-neurotic-nation/

The Danish People’s Party says Germany’s Nazi history still gnaws at the country.

URL: http://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/88-national/51811-government-locked-in-dispute-over-borders.html

Government and DF win majority but lose composure over border control agreement

The government secured the majority it needs for its ‘permanent border control’ agreement last week by the narrowest of margins. In a vote of 90 for and 89 against, parliament cleared the way for the deployment of 98 additional border customs agents – more or less – and sent a strong message to the rest of the EU about how “open” Denmark wants to be.

The razor-thin margin of approval – secured by the single mandate of Per Ørum Jørgensen of the Christian Democrats – was itself symbolic of how controversial the symbol-laden agreement is both inside and outside the nation’s borders.

‘Permanent Customs Control in Denmark’, as it is officially called, is widely acknowledged to be the Liberal-Conservative government’s ‘payment’ to the Danish People’s Party for supporting its 2020 budget reform plan, particularly early retirement reform.

The agreement calls for 98 new customs agents on Denmark’s borders, 24-hour manned borders, four new customs houses, roads separated into six lanes, spot-checks, video surveillance and high-tech ‘contraband’ scanners to come by 2014.

Before the border control agreement was signed last month, the finance minister, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, who was instrumental in writing it with the DF, claimed that border controls could “prevent eastern European gangs from wreaking havoc in our country”.

The Danish National Police have maintained that border controls will have little effect on stopping international criminals or organised crime in Denmark, but their assessment had little sway with the government and the DF, which also got political support for the agreement from the leading opposition parties, the Social Democrats and Socialist People’s Party.

Only the Social Liberals and the Red-Green Alliance opposed the tightened border controls from the beginning.

But last week, in the wake of warnings from EU neighbours and business leaders, both at home and abroad, that the border controls run afoul of EU co-operation and the Schengen Agreement, which guarantee free movement of people and goods, the opposition leaders changed their tune and began to question the agreement.

When Germany’s vice foreign affairs minister, Werner Hoyer, wrote in an article published in all 27 EU countries last week that EU countries now considering new border controls (namely Denmark, France and Italy) were “playing with nationalism’s fire”, the controversy became a full-blown diplomatic row. DF leader Pia Kjærsgaard hit back in Politiken that Hoyer – as a German – had no right to tell other countries about the dangers of nationalism.

One of Denmark’s right-wing elder statesmen and most seasoned diplomats was stunned by the tone of Kjærsgaard’s attack.

“Hoyer wrote very carefully that [Germany’s history with Nazism and Hitler] was precisely why he was warning against nationalism,” former Liberal party foreign affairs minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen told Politiken. “It was totally unfair and a painful insult to be accused of that sort of thing. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read what she wrote.”

Ellemann-Jensen added that it was no wonder the international community was up in arms.

“Many of them [in the DF] have loudly celebrated that we are now going to be done with Schengen. One [DF politician] said we could now return to the way it was before we came into Schengen. When you say things like that you can’t accuse others of taking what we say too seriously,” he said.

As the controversy escalated, the government began backtracking on its earlier tough-talk and claimed that the inte3rnational community had “misunderstood” what the border control agreement was really about – which was “tariffs” not “eastern European criminal gangs”.

The foreign affairs minister, Lene Espersen, and the immigration and development minister, Søren Pind, issued a press release – in English – to clarify the misunderstandings for the international audience. But the explanation was criticised for omitting some of the most controversial elements of the agreement.

The border control agreement (in Danish only) refers to “a significant rise in cross-border criminality” and “criminality by foreign gangs” as the basis for the new measures, with the goal of hindering “suspicious people” from committing crimes in Denmark. But none of that was included in the ministers’ English-language statement. Instead, Espersen and Pind said that the border controls were aimed at halting “tariff fraud”.

Finance minister Frederiksen last week admitted the border plans had indeed hurt Denmark’s image internationally.

“A lot of the talk has had a clearly damaging effect on our reputation,” Frederiksen told Information newspaper.

But while the government was waffling, the message from its critics was clear.

José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission chairman, maintained that the Commission would not let Denmark slip over the line on its EU responsibilities without a fight.

Experts in EU law also maintained that Denmark was on a collision course with the EU.

According to Gerd Battrup, a professor from the University of Southern Denmark’s Institute for Border Region Studies, two specific points are especially problematic: the permanent video monitoring and the partitioning of the roadway into six different lanes with scanners and control facilities.

“The goal with Schengen is to ensure free movement across the national borders. Therefore you cannot create provisions that function as border controls,” she told Politiken. “I don’t think they can implement the agreement and be part of Schengen at the same time.”

Marlene Wind, a professor in civics from the University of Copenhagen agreed.

“The moment you direct cars into six lanes with stops and set up video cameras, you have a form of surveillance. I simply don’t think that holds up to our international duties,” Wind told Politiken.

Wind has often been quoted in the Danish media for her take on issues concerning EU law, her area of expertise. She added that the agreement looked to her like a case of “electioneering” – a reference to this year’s upcoming election.

In reaction to her comment, Pind called her “Halv-Vind” on his Facebook page – a play on her last name that roughly translates as ‘half-cocked’, which Wind said was at too low a level to even merit comment. Kjærsgaard added that Wind had “crossed the line” as an academic commentator and told public broadcaster DR that Wind should be fired or suspended for her statements about the border control agreement.

As the division over border controls and Denmark’s possible engagement with “nationalism’s fire” continues through jabs and threats across political lines, the agreement is expected to come up for final approval in parliament this week.

URL: http://www.cphpost.dk/news/politics/90-politics/51824-eu-expert-hushed-over-border-debate.html#JOSC_TOP

After heated criticism from politicians, professor withdraws as media expert on EU issues

Controversy over permanent border control turned into a debate about freedom of speech yesterday, when University of Copenhagen professor Marlene Wind withdrew as an expert media source following attacks from the government.

Wind, who is often quoted in the Danish media on matters that concern EU policy, her research specialty, was interviewed for several articles last week about whether the government’s new border control plan violates the Schengen Agreement and co-operation agreements that ensure free movement of people and goods across national borders within the EU.

Wind’s assessment was that it does violate Schengen on a number of points that she clarified in detail. She also stated that the agreement  – which claims to address “criminality by foreign gangs” by making it more difficult for “suspicious people” to slip into Denmark  – was a case of “electioneering” that pandered to “the inner brute”.

The immigration and development minister, Søren Pind, and the leader of the Danish People’s Party, Pia Kjærsgaard, who is behind the border control agreement, came out swinging in reaction.

Kjærsgaard said Wind should be fired by the University of Copenhagen for speaking politically instead of objectively. She also claimed Wind was “totally done” as a media expert on the EU.

On his Facebook page Pind reacted by calling Wind “Marlene Halvvind” – a play on her last name that roughly translates as “Marlene Half-cocked”.

Wind’s boss at the University of Copenhagen, Lars Bo Kaspersen, supported the researcher.

“I can’t see that Marlene Wind has expressed herself in a way that breaks any rules. You can disagree or not, but she expressed herself about the EU’s inner market,” Kaspersen told Politiken.

Nevertheless, the case took a new turn on Thursday, when Wind announced that she would be taking “a pause” from the media.

“I hope it will be a very, very long pause,” Kjærsgaard said to public broadcaster DR.

“She has gotten political. She talks down to people. She doesn’t keep to professional and objective facts in connection with her professorship,” Kjærsgaard added.

Wind drew comparisons between the politicians’ personal attacks on her and the situation in the former Soviet Union when people were not allowed to criticise the government.

Kjærsgaard rejected that assessment: “That is the worst rubbish. I don’t want to suppress freedom of speech in any way, but she has to live with it, if others disagree with her. She wasn’t actually able to handle it.”

Martin Østergaard, the vice chairman of the opposition Social Liberals, however, thought Danish freedom of speech had been dealt a serious blow.

“It’s the worst thinkable outcome of this debate; the powers that be succeeded in getting an independent expert to back out from the public debate,” he told public broadcaster DR.

“I am sorry for democracy’s sake. Søren Pind and Pia Kjærsgaard have done a lot of damage,” Østergaard said. “The debate is now short one voice. It sits really badly with freedom of speech.”

He maintained that it was fairplay that Wind called the border control agreement “electioneering”.

“It’s natural that she, as a professor, is responding to the political motives behind an agreement,” Østergaard said. He did not go so far as to defend her comment that the border control agreement appealed to “the inner brute”.

The science minister Charlotte Sahl-Madsen underscored that freedom of speech applied also to experts like Wind, but maintained that they must also make it clear when they are speaking as individuals rather than experts.

“In Denmark we have freedom of association and freedom of speech, and both principals need to be protected, but it also demands that you can tell the difference between a researcher’s professional knowledge and their personal and political interpretations.”