Today’s big topic: The government’s math points to a very large impact from the VAT changes. Perhaps too large, critics say.
Parliament’s opening debate. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (S) and Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt (M).
What’s happening?
It is not possible to find out what share of the planned VAT cuts the government expects will benefit Danes. The Ministry of Taxation simply will not release the figure.
But Politiken can reveal it anyway.
The government plans to eliminate VAT entirely on fruits and vegetables and to halve the VAT on other foods. That will cost the treasury 17.4 billion kroner a year. The question, then, is how much of that money will actually make it to Danish consumers.
The Ministry of Taxation has assumed that about 96 percent will end up in Danes’ pockets. That is what a calculation by Politiken shows.
Why it matters!
The Ministry of Taxation’s estimate is at the very high end, said Michael Svarer, a professor of economics at Aarhus University and a former chair of the Danish Economic Councils.
»If you look at the experience from other countries, you’ve seen very different effects when VAT has been changed. In some places, the pass-through is complete; in other places, it’s virtually none at all«, he says.
Michael Svarer does not think you can »soberly say in advance anything about what the pass-through will be«.
In recent months, the government has come under heavy criticism from economists who have warned against introducing differentiated VAT rates. Broadly speaking, they say differentiated VAT is an inefficient way to give Danes more purchasing power, and that it is entirely uncertain how large an effect it will ultimately have. And when the plan costs 17.4 billion kroner a year, it is a poor way to spend the money, critics have said.
The Ministry of Taxation will not explain how it arrived at its 96 percent estimate. But the ministry writes that the pass-through will depend on how large the administrative costs of differentiated VAT will be for businesses. It has not been possible to secure an interview with the minister of taxation, Jakob Engel-Schmidt (Moderaterne, M).
Still curious? Read the full article here.
In other news
– Uber must now sell the phone number 4x48 and the Dantaxi brand
Uber’s return to Denmark in January 2025 was seen by the Competition Council as a breath of fresh air for the taxi market. But after the company bought a significant stake in the taxi firm Drivr Danmark and, in May, also Denmark’s largest taxi company, Dantaxi, and merged with it, the Competition Council put its foot down and demanded that the merger be investigated. The result of that investigation is that Uber is being forced to divest large parts of Dantaxi’s business.
– Two groups of young men were killed after driving the wrong way. Now their TikTok profiles are drawing attention and outrage.
A vehicle carrying five young men, slammed into a patrol vehicle that had tried to stop them. The two officers in the police car were killed. So were the five young men.
Now concern is growing in Britain that this was more than a tragic and brutal incident. That the crash may be the latest example of an extremely violent culture in which young people, on social media, engage in death-driving in pursuit of attention. Britain’s The Times reports that profiles linked to the five young men killed in the crash have posted videos of people in balaclavas on motorcycles and of car chases set to hip-hop soundtracks.
Read the full story here.
– Long-awaited reports on the IUD case to be published Friday
Naalakkersuisoq for Children, Youth, Justice and Equality, Mariane Paviasen Jensen (IA), told the Greenlandic outlet Sermitsiaq that the reports on the IUD case will be published on Friday. The reports concern girls and women who, between 1960 and 1991, had IUDs inserted without their knowledge or consent. Greenland’s self-government has asked experts to examine whether the Danish state is guilty of genocide and other violations of international law.
This follows revelations that thousands of Greenlandic girls and women were fitted with IUDs in the 1960s and over the next three decades. An inquiry published in September 2025 found, according to the then Ministry of the Interior and Health, that this had happened in at least 4,070 cases.
Talk of town: Scandinavia should brace for more tourists
Trondheim, about 500 kilometers north of Oslo, is setting records year after year for the number of overnight stays by foreign tourists.
Politiken has travelled to Trondheim because, unlike Copenhagen and Oslo, the city has not traditionally been among the Nordics’ obvious tourist magnets. But as with many other overlooked destinations, tourism has been rising sharply in recent years. At the same time, Northern Europe as a whole is growing more popular with travelers. The question is whether climate has a role in that – and if so, what it means for tourism in the Nordic countries.
The idea of a new kind of travel – the so-called “coolcation” – has taken hold among travel agencies as well as traditional and social media. The term refers to tourists, who head north to escape the increasingly frequent heat waves in more southern latitudes.
Karin Fuglem, project and innovation director at the tourism organization, says they actively uses the coolcation concept in its marketing, for example, in the slogan: ’The weather is chronic, but our food is iconic.’
According to Statistics Norway, the annual number of foreign overnight stays in Trøndelag, the region where Trondheim is located, rose from about 180,000 to more than 700,000 from 2020 to 2025.
Those are small numbers compared with destinations that can offer skiing, the Northern Lights, or dramatic fjords. Still, the growth is striking. Tourists are increasingly discovering Trondheim, not least because of a targeted marketing push, a booming restaurant scene, and the city’s thousand-year history as a royal seat and pilgrimage destination.
But also precisely because it isn’t as crowded as other places. »For many, we’re a hidden gem. People can breathe in our region«, Fuglem says.
Read the full story from Trondheim and about the positive and negative sides of coolcation here.
This newsletter features stories originally published in Danish. AI was used to shorten and translate the articles into English, after which a member of the editorial staff reviewed and refined the content.