Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen presented a high-profile agenda in her New Year’s speech: fossil-free flying from 2030, ‘liberating’ municipalities from state bureaucracy and bringing more migrant workers to Denmark.
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Frederiksen (44) who took office two years ago wants domestic flights to stop using fossil fuels from 2030, but only use green ones. That same year, Denmark must also emit 70 percent less greenhouse gases than it did in 1990. “Travel is life and that’s why we fly,” said the prime minister. “When other countries in the world are too slow. Then Denmark should take the lead and raise the bar.” It is an ambitious plan, because the technology for ‘green flying’ is still in its infancy. Aircraft manufacturer Airbus has indicated that it is working on aircraft that fly on hydrogen, but says it can deliver these from 2035 at the earliest.
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Frederiksen agreed that it will be difficult to realize the green domestic flights, but said that researchers and companies are working on solutions. “This is a very important announcement. Action has to be taken now, so it is excellent that politicians are pushing for this, even if it is probably a very ambitious plan,” said Lasse Rosendahl, professor at the Faculty of Energy Technology at Aalborg University. Sweden previously set the goal of making domestic flights fossil-free by 2030 and international flights by 2045. France decided in 2021 to ban domestic flights if the destination can be reached within 2.5 hours by train.
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Big plans
Apart from the green flying, Frederiksen surprised her compatriots with more big plans. Among other things, that all Danish municipalities ‘should be liberated from the rules and bureaucracy of the state’. The prime minister wants municipalities to be able to decide for themselves how they want to run their primary schools, kindergartens and elderly care. The proposal is an extension of a pilot, in which seven municipalities will be exempt from the normal government rules on documentation, for example, from the beginning of 2021.
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She also announced that her Social Democratic government will open up to foreign workers. This is to compensate for the appalling lack of domestic workers. Plans for this will be presented later this month. Finance Minister Nicolai Wammen later – in an interview with Berlingske newspaper – called finding workers “an absolute top priority” of the government.
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