Danish government party sets out goals for citizenship talks, more than 700,000 people set up credit warnings after CPR leak and more news from Denmark on Thursday.
More than 700,000 people set up credit warnings after CPR leak
In just one week, the amount of people who have set up a credit warning linked to their CPR number has risen almost fourfold from 250,000 to almost 970,000, according to figures from Denmark’s Ministry for Research, Education and Digitalisation reported by the Ritzau news wire.
On October 1st, before the CPR leak was announced, just 250,000 people had registered a credit warning on Borger.dk, which effectively means it becomes more difficult to take out a loan or other form of credit using a CPR number, protecting against identity fraud. It signals to companies that they should take particular care when carrying out identity checks.
The CPR leak, announced on Monday, affects more than 8.8 million people. The hacker or hackers behind the leak used a small Danish company’s access to the CPR register – Denmark’s population register – to steal information over a ten day long period in September.
When a company searches for a number in the CPR register it has to pay a small fee for each search, which meant that the small company whose access was used ended up with a large invoice. That’s what originally alerted Danish authorities to the issue.
Danish authorities have not confirmed which small company is involved, or who is behind the hack.
Danish vocabulary: kreditadvarsel – credit warning
Number of small parcels registered at Danish customs plummets after new EU rule
A new EU rule placing a tariff of at least three euros on any parcel worth 150 euros or less came into force on July 1st this year. After that, the number of small parcels coming into Denmark from outside the EU has fallen sharply, according to Denmark’s Ministry of Tax and Growth.
In the weeks before the new rule came into force, Danish customs registered between 1.6 and 2.2 million items per week, according to the ministry. According to Danish customs, 400,000 small parcels were registered the week before the rule change.
In the first week after the rule change, that fell to 200,000, will the fall continuing throughout August and September.
Between August 31st and September 6th, customs registered less than 10,000 small parcels.
According to Tax and Growth Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt, this is a sign that there are fewer “cheap low quality items” entering Denmark from China.
“Items which far too often do not live up to the consumer protection standards we have here in the EU,” he said.
He added that he hopes the new fee will encourage consumers to “choose more items from European countries who follow the rules, rather than purchasing things on non-European companies who sell junk from, for example, China”.
According to the Danish Chamber of Commerce and courier company Dao, however, these items are still coming in to Denmark.
“Last year, parcels from China often came to Dao via Danish airports, but now they come on trucks from all over Europe. The parcels are still here, they just aren’t being registered at customs in Denmark any more,” Steen Breiner, head of communications at Dao, told Danish broadcaster TV2.
Danish vocabulary: told – customs
Government proposes earmarking 70 million for new marine nature parks
The government and The Alternative, one of its support parties, has proposed earmarking 70 million kroner for new nature parks in Danish seas as part of the country’s budget for 2027.
The proposal would see two new areas in Danish waters officially declared “national marine nature parks”, where marine life will be restored with the areas in question protected from fishing and raw material objection.
“Our underwater nature is fantastic,” environment minister Maria Reumert Gjerding said in a press statement.
“But Denmark’s marine environment is also heavily affected by how we have exploited the seas for decades.
Torsten Gejl, environment and nature spokesperson from The Alternative, wants one of the two areas to be the Bay of Aarhus.
“It’s Denmark’s second-largest city and the waters in the Bay of Aarhus have enormous potential, but they are crying out for help,” he told Ritzau.
The proposal would see 67.8 million kroner put aside over three years.
Danish vocabulary: havmiljø – marine environment
‘Tough but smart’: Danish Social Liberal Party outlines goals for citizenship talks
In a new interview with The Local, the Social Liberal Party’s new citizenship spokesperson Magnus Georg Jensen discusses the Danish government’s decision to push ahead with the long-stalled citizenship bill, which put the cases of 2,055 citizenship applicants on hold for a year and a half.
He confirmed that the decision to restart the bill is not perfect, conceding that children who were included on the bill who turned 18 since it was paused in January 2025 will no longer be granted citizenship.
“That is super unfair,” he said. “There will be some collateral damage from this, undoubtedly, and I understand that people will say about some of these things that they are unfair, and that’s right. They will be.”
“I understand the frustration,” he added, talking more generally about the citizenship freeze. “It must be a super annoying feeling that you’ve done everything to be part of this society and to become a Danish citizen, and then Danish society all of a sudden closes the door on you.”
READ ALSO: Danish Social Liberal Party outlines goals for citizenship talks
He also discussed government negotiations around introducing a new controversial screening system, as well as potentially making it easier for some applicants to receive citizenship for example by making time spent in higher education count towards qualifying for citizenship.
“We need to set demands that are tough, but we also need to set demands that are smart,” he said.
Read the full interview, by The Local’s Nordic Editor Richard Orange, here.
Danish vocabulary: De Radikale/Radikale Venstre – The Social Liberals
With reporting from Ritzau