Citizens’ Council, Pay Talks & Inflation in Denmark: LWID S1E6

In this episode, hear Journalist Wizzi Magnussen and Founder of Last Week in Denmark, Narcis George Matache present this week's newsletter headlines, a political over and deep dive into some of the below topics.

Topics covered include: 

• The first citizen assembly in Denmark - Copenhagen Parliament
• Tripartite negotiations for public employees salary increase
• Norway's latest treasure hunting - sea bed mining
• Extraordinary drought aid for the farmers from the EU
• Danish bishop from Viborg as the president of the World Lutheran Association
• Changes for the Danish language
• Guide for the screen time
• The liberal movement in Denmark
• The three languages of the kingdom

and more...

Produced by Wizmedia.

Transcript Editor: Ioana, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ioana-nechifor/

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Transcript

Wizzi: Welcome to the Last Week in Denmark podcast. I'm your host, Wizzi Magnussen and I'm here with founder of Last Week in Denmark Narcis to discuss this week's news and offer you extra insight into what's been happening and how it could affect you. Now, let's jump in. Welcome back to the microphone, Narcis. So what's new in the world of Last Week in Denmark?

Narcis: Well, I would say the fact that we're actually recording this in your studio for once.

Wizzi: Yes, you're very welcome. It's nice to have somebody in the studio to record in person with me. This is actually the first in person recording like with, with a guest that I've done since I moved here.

Narcis: No, that's, that's fantastic. But you know why I'm here, right? If everyone that listens to us and reads the newsletter, you know, I'm in Copenhagen.

Wizzi: Welcome to Copenhagen or København.

Narcis: Yes. I'm so happy to be here. I got the experience to, to see, to meet our, our listeners, our readers and it was a nice experience to be here at International Citizen Days. We're definitely coming back next year. It's, it's worth it and I hope some of you had the chance to, to meet with us. If not, I have other good news. We have actually an office now, like physical location in Aalborg. So if you're willing to make the trip up north to the Paris of the North, as we like to call it, you're welcome to visit our new office. And also in the office news, we actually got several working stations, five working stations from a company called Bloomtree Technologies. They're an IT refurbishment company and they decided to make this donation for us because they really like what we are doing and they wanted to support somehow the project and that was their action. So we are so happy. This was our first donation from a business, I would say.

Wizzi: That's fantastic. Might they be interested in sponsoring the podcast? I don't know.

Narcis: This is our first interaction with the business world. So let's see how much are they, where this relationship with them will go.

Wizzi: See how it develops.

Narcis: Yeah, I have a feeling there is, there's more good stuff coming out of that, of knowing them and hopefully other companies who also like and support this project. Also welcome to support it in one way or another.

Wizzi: So this business has offered you office space. Is that for people who work for Last Week in Denmark, the newsletter and create the content and stuff?

Narcis: Well, as you know that I'm writing the English version myself. Well, not completely. There's one section that's being done by Punita, the healthcare, the health one, and also the section with events and culture done by Cicek. But besides that, I'm writing it. But what we need actually support it is with presence on social media, communication. I don't really have time to promote a newsletter. I spend most of my volunteering to actually write it. So there isn't much time left to promote. So that's where we would have volunteers who want to have a space and help us in communicating and reaching to way more people in the future.

Wizzi: Fantastic. Now, moving on. Narcis, can you please talk us through some of the newsletter headlines for this week and introduce what we will be covering on today's episode?

Narcis: Well, I think let's start with what we're going to be covering in today's episode. I would like us to discuss about the Copenhagen Parliament. It's actually quite an interesting concept that we're going to discuss a bit later about. And also I would like to go a little bit into this three parted negotiations that are coming up regarding salary increases for certain parts of the public employee. Maybe some of our listeners are working either as a nurse or as a SOSU assistant and then they should be very interested to listen further. Obviously we're going to look a little bit at the inflation rate and how's the situation with the economy right now. And I think that will be it in terms of the main issues. However, if you look into the newsletter, you can see some really cool stuff. Norway is already hunting for the next big treasure. They seem to not have enough money, so now they want to go and mine their seabeds for rare minerals. That should be cool. Obviously nobody really wants to let them do that. But you know, you can read about the extraordinary drought aid for farmers, so that should be something interesting as well for some of you. There's a Danish bishop from Viborg who got elected as the president of the World Lutheran Association. So basically now he represents all the 77 million Lutherans in the world. And he is actually the first Dane to ever be in that position. There is actually some changes to the Danish language. They decided to make Danish language more equal. So they kind of, you know, lately there's an agenda of gender equality, right? So they try to kind of change certain words that are, let's just say, sounding more masculine, non inclusive. Yeah, I guess. And they want to turn them to be a bit more inclusive in the way that. So they don't sound like you're referring to a man, but you can refer to a person. So you might notice that, it will be launched at the end of the year.

Wizzi: Does that mean everything I've learned in my Danish lessons is gonna have to be relearned?

Narcis: No, it's basically endings. They literally change some endings. So it's nothing more than that. You can also see that we might get a lot more tourists to Denmark starting next year because we got all the Viking fortresses, all five of them, we got included on the UNESCO list. So everyone is excited to see what impact that's going to have on tourism in Denmark. And besides that, you can actually read a little bit about the guide. There's a guide for parents in terms of how much they should allow their children to use screens. There's an official guide released by the Børns Vilkår. I don't really remember the English translation for that association. I think it Save the Children maybe. And also there's a big discussion about abortion limit. It seems that even though we are quite a progressive country, it's only 12 weeks the limit in Denmark, while in other countries it's much, much further along. So there's a discussion now about it. Feel free to read more in the in the newsletter. There's a lot of more other interesting topics that are covered.

Wizzi: So today we won't have time to cover all these headlines in depth. But as Narcis has just said, it is all in the newsletter. So do subscribe if you haven't already and enjoy the full stories direct to your inbox every Sunday. You can click the link in this show description to subscribe today and keep up to date with what's happening in Denmark. Before we move into a deeper dive segment of the show and take an intricate look at some of the headlines this week, Narcis, would you like to take us through our political overview?

Narcis: Yes, I would like to do that because I was very unhappy this, this, this week. I was really looking forward to Denmark making this huge step forward to introduce simultaneous interpretation in the three languages. You know, because Denmark doesn't have only one language. We have three. We have Danish, we have Greenlandic, and we have Faroese. And while the Greenlandic Parliament offers simultaneous interpretation in both Danish and Greenlandic, the Danish one doesn't. And if you remember, if you have read the newsletter, in the summer or before the summer, there was a Greenlandic member of the Parliament who decided that she would like to speak in Greenlandic because she feels more comfortable expressing her thoughts and her arguments in that language. And that already created a wave. And I'm really shocked that this is a topic in 2023. Greenland has been part of the Kingdom of Denmark for, for centuries. And now in 2023 they are discussing should we have Greenlandic as a language that they can speak in the Parliament? I mean, Greenlandic people are also represented by the Danish Parliament. So I was a bit shocked. There was a huge pressure on the parliament to introduce the simultaneous deportation, but their argument was it's too expensive. 200 million kronas will cost the parliament to introduce this simultaneous interpretation. And a lot of training of new interpreters because it's not exactly that there's just that many Greenlandic speakers or Faroese speakers out there. So their, let's just say, temporary solution was that they will allow Greenlandic and Faroese members of the parliament to speak in their own language, but at the same time they need to repeat their own speech in Danish themselves so they'll get extra time. Basically that's, let's just say that's a small gain for diversity in the Danish Parliament, but still far away from what they should be doing, which is simultaneous interpretation. And I, maybe I am a dreamer here, but one day I hope English will also be one of the languages they will be using in the Danish Parliament, like the fourth language.

Wizzi: That would be handy.

Narcis: Right?

Wizzi: Until I get through some more of these Danish language modules that I need to do.

Narcis: Well, I mean, there's, right now we are 12% of the population. Considering the, the lack of workforce that we have in Denmark, the percentage will only increase in the future. The average time to learn Danish language is five to 10 years. To a decent level, not to a perfect level.

Wizzi: That's a long time, isn't it? And I've taken a break. I did module one and it was so intense that my husband and I decided to take a break before module two. So time's just slipping away and we've forgotten everything we learn in module one.

Narcis: Ah, goodness, yeah. To be honest, if you do not put yourself in a situation where you speak it every day to practice it literally every day for at least couple of years, then it will take even longer.

Wizzi: I think that's my main problem. I don't really interact with anybody that speaks Danish on a daily basis. I don't go to an office. I don't. I try and speak Danish a little bit, but I think as soon as people hear my accent, they just switch to English anyway.

Narcis: Okay.

Wizzi: Because they realize I'm not Danish.

Narcis: I mean, there's lots of ways for you to speak more Danish. If you join some associations locally, here you have, I'm pretty sure you have a lot of interest. So for example, just joining the local, the Folkets Radio, if you're being a radio journalist, I think you'll have the chance to actually practice doing journalism in Danish there. It's, it's. It's open for anyone who does, who wants to do radio. It's called Folkets Radio. It's basically, I think present in every city in Denmark. It's like an association. They own a local radio and they welcome anyone who wants to join and do their own shows there.

Wizzi: That sounds fantastic. I'll be looking that up.

Narcis: Super. I would say besides the, the simultaneous interpretation, the only thing I would like to mention will be Venstre's metamorphosis because it's quite interesting. They used to lead the, the blue block not so long ago. They have been tied down by conservative forces for the last 10 to 20 years. But now they really want to change. They want to become a Liberal party. They call themselves a Liberal party, but they haven't really been a Liberal party for the last two decades because they wanted to bring together all the right wing forces which contain conservatives, libertarians and nationalists and populists, of course. And that has been difficult for them. And they said that the only reason the Blue block existed was because they themselves had to make many compromises. And from now on they are not willing to make any more compromises. From now on they will not work with the conservatives, nationalists and libertarians. They want a true liberal project moving on. And that should be interesting to see how that goes. Basically now we see we have multiple groupings. We don't really have any more this red, blue, clear divide. I think the next elections will be a lot more interesting exactly because of that. That now everyone is starting to find their own poll in Danish politics.

Wizzi: You've mentioned this before. We've actually discussed this a few times. The sort of idea that parties are getting less sort of straight in one way or another, you know, in the governments now, the parties are going to be made up of sort of different differing opinions and it's going to be based on policy rather than sort of core beliefs.

Narcis: Yeah. I would say that they became a lot more pragmatic and now they... It's. It's no longer necessary. You know, it was unthinkable before Social Democrats and Liberals made together the government. It was unthinkable for a red party and a blue party to govern together. But now that that kind of has been broken that they. They jumped over that hedge right now. So it's open for all. It's not unthinkable now to see, for example, the nationalists like DF and the socialists like SF propose together policy for taxing the energy traders, which you can also read in this week's newsletter. So it's, it's. No, I think it's no longer a taboo to work across lines. And, and I think it's a, it's a huge change for Danish politics and I think it's a huge change for, for Danish politicians because they got so used to stay in their own lanes for, for decades and now that literally you could work with anyone as long as you find a common policy that you both support. It's kind of mind breaking. I'm curious how the voters will be impacted because it was easy before. You either blue or you red and you may be being blue or red for three generations. What now? You really have to actually listen to the campaigns and actually bother with understanding what they're selling to you to actually know who to vote anymore for. I have a bad feeling that the voting percentage will drop in the next elections.

Wizzi: That's an interesting insight. I was going to ask you what do you think the impact of this is going to be for voters? And you've sort of already answered that. So I mean, do you think is, is this a good thing, a good step forward, do you think?

Narcis: Personally, I don't know if something is good or bad. Everything is good or bad, you know, I mean, look, we, we live in Denmark, which is a very, very safe country. That's amazing, right? To live in safety. But at the same time it's a double edged sword, in the same time, people don't struggle, by not struggling, they don't, they, It's easier for them to fall into this, let's just call them mental health illnesses. And we have a higher rate for that in Denmark compared to other countries in Europe. So everything is both good and bad. It's difficult to say if what's going on right now in Danish politics is good. It just is. And we have to get used to the new reality. And then we have to see, okay, how can we influence or what role we as internationals can play in this new fragmented political environment.

Wizzi: Absolutely. Next up on today's show is our Deep Dive segment. This is where we discuss a few of the big stories of the week. Narcis, what are we covering first?

Narcis: I would like us to talk about Copenhagen first. We are recording this now together both from, from Copenhagen. Copenhagen has made a really interesting experiment. They are the first municipality in Denmark to organize something called Citizens Council. They basically through lottery... No, first of all, they ask people around Copenhagen, they send them a letter, hey, would you like to be part of Copenhagen Parliament? And then people registered interest. And then they decided, okay, we need this many old people, this many young people, this many people with ethnic background, this many people with maybe physical or mental illness, and so on. They wanted to have a, a clear representation of, of everyone in there. And then they used lottery and they literally selected by lottery and whoever got it, got it. It was a random selection.

Wizzi: It sounds kind of like jury duty. I don't know if you. I don't know if we even have that in Denmark. In England you have jury. Jury duty. And it's basically potluck who gets chosen.

Narcis: Who.

Wizzi: Huh?

Narcis: Who is for luck?

Wizzi: Pot luck. Yeah.

Narcis: I didn't never heard of that, sorry, before. No, it's just because you have to understand that this is kind of the direction a lot of municipalities want to go. It's called somehow. It's a concept of direct democracy where they. It shouldn't be so much who is getting elected, so it shouldn't be a popularity conduct. But they want to see if a very well, representative group of people, what will they decide? What will they want for Copenhagen? So actually that's exactly what they did for two years. They got this, this question, okay, how can we improve Copenhagen? And then the city council of Copenhagen decided to take it upon themselves that they will actually consider the recommendations. However, Copenhagen Parliament is an advisory role. They can only propose. They cannot have furthermore influence.

Wizzi: So they can't actually make any decisions or make changes or policies. But they can suggest this is what the people of Copenhagen would like to see.

Narcis: And actually they came up with, with a very interesting long document, seven large thematic recommendations. But for us as internationals, I think. I really like that. I see the number one recommendation is that Copenhagen should be a more inclusive city. And one of the concrete recommendations was that we should, all the public communication made by Copenhagen Municipality, their websites and whatnot, they should be bilingual. It should be in English as well.

Wizzi: That would be helpful.

Narcis: It's a huge step in the direction of making Copenhagen a more, well, the administration of Copenhagen becoming bilingual and Copenhagen becoming truly a bilingual city in Denmark.

Wizzi: I think that's, that's a good thing because it really is difficult when you first move here. You don't speak any of the language and all your official paperwork. And for me, I was setting up a business and all of this, and I spent a fortune on getting somebody to literally fill out a form for me, which I could have done myself if I spoke Danish or trusted Google Translate, you know. But with these official documents, you can't really trust your own translation abilities and Google's translation abilities because it might not be accurate. And if it's a legal document you got to sign, you need somebody to translate it for you or help you. So if it's, if it's all available in English as well, I think that would help a lot of people moving here for sure.

Narcis: That's true. But you did you really have to complete the documents in Danish? Wow. I'm shocked because in Aalborg we already made that change years ago.

Wizzi: Good for Aalborg. What am I doing in Copenhagen?

Narcis: I'm shocked that Copenhagen doesn't offer English documents when people are moving in here. Wow.

Wizzi: It happened with my rental contracts as well. That was all Danish. And you know, rental contracts are pages and pages long.

Narcis: You know, there is, there is a little stipulation in Danish law that says that if you sign a contract in a language you don't understand, that contract's not valid.

Wizzi: Really?

Narcis: No, for real. That's why normally you, if you don't feel comfortable or you say, okay, I don't understand what I'm signing, the, you're supposed to get an authorized translator translated into English. That should be the exact meaning of what was it in, in Danish. And then sign that thing as well. You still have to sign both. Yeah, but only then you truly legal. But many people don't bother with this. It's a very overlooked part of, of the law because people don't want to pay extra for the translation. Not cheap to translate as you imagine, with an authorized translator.

Narcis: Yeah, we actually used a website that translated, we had to pay for it because we thought we could use Google Translate, but it was too large a document and too complex. So we used. I can't remember what the website was, but there's a website that will translate anything into anything, and a page or two is free, and then you have to sort of put credit on your account and then it will translate more. So for our first rental contract, we did that because they, we asked them for an English copy and they said, no, we're not legally allowed to provide you with an English copy in case our translation is not correct.

Narcis: They are not legally wanting to spend money.

Wizzi: So, yeah, they basically said it's our responsibility. If we need it translated, we have to get it translated. They're just interested in the signature at the end, you know.

Narcis: Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a strange one. And to be honest, very few people bother. But I notice in business deals because since I entered the business world, they actually take that seriously, especially when you buy a company. When you buy parts of a company, they, they're very careful about. Do you actually understand what you're signing? So I see it more common. That's where I discovered that actually you're supposed to, to care more to care about the language that you're signing in, somehow. Yeah, you should care about that. But, yeah, that's kind of the Copenhagen Parliament. You should definitely check it out. I hope next there'll be another call, I think next year for a new group of people. I hope to see some of the internationals also signing up to it. There is definitely a quota in the parliament for ethnic minorities. So, yeah, when you see your Eboks call, please sign up here. And maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones to be selected next time.

Wizzi: So does this get sent out sort of through digital post or something? And then you, you, so we should all have that email. We will next year.

Narcis: Yeah.

Wizzi: And then we can sign up and then we'll see if. see if we get chosen, basically.

Narcis: Absolutely. That's exactly how it works.

Wizzi: Perfect. Okay, what's next?

Narcis: Well, next, I would say we could look a little bit at the salary increase. Right now there is a. You know, the Prime Minister keeps going around saying, I decided I want to increase the salary of nurses, pedagogues or educators, health and social assistance and prison guards. For some reason, the biggest problems that Denmark has.

Wizzi: Is this related to the gang conversation we had last week? They're trying to get the prisons ready for all the gang members? Now they've cracked down... 

Narcis: In the same time, they're overcrowded, but also understaffed. Very few people want to work as a prison guard in Denmark. So they're hoping by increasing the salaries of prison guards, more will take that direction. But I think what's interesting here is that Prime Minister cannot just decide, well, from now on, I will make an increase of 2,500 crowns per month for these four categories. She just can talk about it, she can desire it, but she can't decide it. There needs to be a process called a three parted negotiation. Together with the trade unions and with the association of the employers and the government, of course. So that's why it's three, three parted. And together they need to negotiate and come up to a common agreement to decide. Okay, yes, this is the groups we want to make a salary increase and this is the salary increase we want to give them. Only through that process this can happen, when we're talking about public employees.

Wizzi: So how long would this process take?

Narcis: Even up to a year.

Wizzi: Okay.

Narcis: It's not slow. So it's, It's. I mean, if it's. If it starts now, there could be a chance to see it in January. They might be faster these days compared to the past. But it depends on if there is a lot of, how far away they are from each other. Because that's the whole reason of negotiation is to, they need to reach a compromise. And it can take two meetings or it can take 50. Nobody knows. There is no like set number of meetings that you can have until you have an agreement.

Wizzi: How long is a piece of string? So they've all got to just talk until they agree. Basically, yeah. That's how I approach arguments with, with like personal friends. They're having an argument. Just keep going until you agree. 

Narcis: Okay. That's one way, I guess too.

Wizzi: The most important thing is the listening. Actively listening and finding something in that what that person is saying, their point of view that you do agree with, and then latch to that and then you can all be friends again.

Narcis: Yeah, but I think what Prime Minister is trying to do is that the reason why she went to the media, said, I want to give this salary increase of 2,500 kronas to these four groups of public employees, especially to set up her negotiation position. Hey, dear future negotiators, this is what we want. Now  we're waiting for the trade unions and the representatives of the employers to see what do they want. Because it's not the government who gives this extra money, is the employers. In this case, we're talking about if these nurses, the regional governments, which also you probably have seen in the previous episodes that they're not doing very well financially. So only if the government decides to, you know, open up a little bit the treasury door and be like, dear regional and local governments, I know where you are suffering. We know that. Here you go. Money. But most likely, and unfortunately what we're going to see is tax cuts. So you'll get to keep more of your money. Fair enough. In your pocket. But at the same time, you might not have a school around you for your child. So priorities, I guess.

Wizzi:  It's all about priorities, isn't it?

Narcis: Yeah. Remember on the 27th of September, if you're gonna see people in military uniform in your company, don't be scared. It's not war coming. It's just that the Ministry of Defense has asked all the people connected to the to the military to wear their uniform that day. It's a way to convince more people to join the Home Guard forces. I'm also a member of the Home Guard, so I'll be looking forward to wear my uniform that day.

Wizzi: You'll have to send pictures. You're allowed to send pictures? You're allowed to take pictures in uniform. Military uniform. Fantastic. Before we sign off, do remember we are inviting guest speakers onto this podcast to share further insights into the news of the week. If you'd like to apply to be a guest on the Last Week in Denmark podcast, please email your name, topic of expertise, and a summary of your experience on your chosen topic to hello@wizmedia.dk. That's W I Z M E D I A.dk. Thank you for tuning in today, Narcis, thank you for your time. Lovely to see you.

Narcis: It was a pleasure to be in your studio.

Wizzi: Yeah. Welcome to Wiz Media Towers. It's been nice to host you. We both hope you've all found this podcast informative, interesting and of value. We'll be back next week on your favorite podcast platform. Just searched Last Week in Denmark. Thank you very much for listening and goodbye for now.