The Copenhagen Post, Ryesgade 106A, Copenhagen (2025)

21/11/2025

Lederne has named CEO of LEGO, Niels B. Christiansen its Leader of the Year.

In awarding him the prize, the jury highlighted his role in securing LEGO's strong financial performance, as well as his analytical approach and ability to build trust and bring clarity within the organisation.

Christiansen, a longtime admirer of the brand who joined in 2017 after proactively expressing interest in the role, has since helped the company double its revenue. Under his leadership, LEGO's revenue has grown by 112 percent, far exceeding competitor Mattel's growth of 10 percent over the same period.

Read more at the link in the comments.

Photo courtesy: Lego.com

21/11/2025

This year's local elections have been many things, but more than anything, they have been a reckoning for Denmark's legacy political party, Socialdemokratiet (The Social Democrats, A), and a resurgence for Socialistisk Folkeparti (The Green Left, SF).

For the first time in over a century, Copenhagen's most coveted seat of Lord Mayor will be occupied by a non-Social Democrat in SF's Sisse Marie Welling – a historic and defining result for a party that has not always been at the forefront of Danish politics but that has, under the aegis of strong and determined women, understood political nuances and adapted itself to the evolving electorate.

When the party was founded in 1959 by Aksel Larsen, it established its position as socialist and democratic, with a focus on parliamentary change rather than revolutionary politics. Over the next few decades, it would go on to include welfare, environmental responsibility, gender equality, and human rights among its priorities.

Under Villy Søvndal's leadership in the 2000s, SF gained nationwide recognition for its progressive and pragmatic politics, and went on to enter government in 2011. This high was followed by a sudden and dramatic fall on the back of compromises made under Helle Thorning-Schmidt's (A) governance, the infamous teachers' lockout of 2013, and the D**G Energy controversy. Add internal turmoil to the mix, and by 2015, SF was on its knees.

Slowly, under Pia Olsen Dyhr, the party embarked on a period of slow, disciplined reconstruction to win back voter trust, reintroducing consistency and predictability in its politics. By 2019, its popularity was on the up, strengthened further in 2022, and reinforced this year when the party secured 3.5 percent more votes than it did in 2021 in an election when many established Danish parties across the blue and red blocs faltered and lost voter favour.

Were SF's gains in Denmark mere strokes of luck? What did they get right that other left-wing parties didn't? And what do these local election results mean for their parliamentary bid next year?

Find out at the link in the comments.

Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

20/11/2025

A number of internationals contested the municipal and regional elections this year. While an official count is still pending, preliminary results suggest that not many secured seats in city councils once the votes were tallied.

Still, some candidates – both internationals and Danes with international backgrounds – took on the challenge and emerged victorious across municipalities.

In Vesthimmerland, Socialdemokratiet's (The Social Democrats, A) Lesia Havryliuk became the first Ukrainian to be elected to a Danish institution. Meanwhile, in Frederikshavn, Almina Nikontovic – who arrived in Denmark as a Bosnian refugee in 1993 – won a seat on the municipality's city council for Socialistisk Folkeparti (The Green Left, SF).

Over in Copenhagen, Turkish national, Günay Usta, booked a spot for his party, Enhedslisten (The Red-Green Alliance, Ø). As did Yildiz Akdogan (A), who came to Denmark from Turkey in the late '70s and went on to become one of the first two women with an ethnic background to be elected to the Danish Parliament in 2007. Joining Usta and Akdogan is Kashif Ahmad – born to Pakistani parents who moved to Denmark over 50 years ago, he ran this election as a member of Radikale Venstre (The Danish Social Liberal Party, B).

More on the internationals who beat the odds to enter local government can be found in the comments.

20/11/2025

As of this morning, MobilePay has introduced an update that allows all 4.6 million users in Denmark to use the app as a contactless payment card in stores.

Previously, this feature was available only to users with a Mastercard account at Danske Bank or an SEB Kort.

Next year, MobilePay plans to expand support to Visa cards and include more banks to enable direct account payments.

While similar to Apple Pay and Google Pay, MobilePay distinguishes itself by offering full integration within a single app and providing Danish-language support for added user convenience.

Read more at the link in the comments.

20/11/2025

The results for 2025's municipal and regional elections are largely in, save for a handful of municipalities that are still completing their counts.

In Copenhagen, however, the numbers were finalised yesterday. The headline was Socialistisk Folkeparti's (The Green Left, SF) Sisse Marie Welling winning the Lord Mayor seat, upsetting over 100 years of Social Democratic leadership in the capital.

Earlier today, the specialised mayoral portfolios were also made official.

Line Barfod (Enhedslisten, The Red-Green Alliance, Ø) did not make Lord Mayor despite her party winning the largest share of votes in the capital (22.1 percent), but she will continue as Mayor for Technology and the Environment – a position she has held since January 2022.

Also returning in their respective mayoral roles are Jakob Næsager (Det Konservative Folkeparti, The Conservatives, C) as Mayor for Children and Youth and Karina Vestergård Madsen (Ø) as Mayor for Social Affairs.

Other portfolios have been shuffled. Come January 2026, Christopher Røhl of Radikale Venstre (The Danish Social Liberal Party, B) will succeed Mia Nyegaard (B) as Mayor for Culture and Leisure, Venstre's (The Liberal Party of Denmark, V) Jens-Kristian Lütken will move from Mayor for Employment and Integration to take over Welling's former position as Mayor for Health and Care, and Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil (Socialdemokratiet, The Social Democrats, A) will step in as the new Mayor for Employment, Integration and Business.

Find out what these mayoral appointments will mean for local governance going forward in the comments.

20/11/2025

More than 100 layoffs are expected across the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Science as it seeks to reduce its budget deficit by DKK 100 million annually.

Part of the financial strain behind the deficit stems from costs associated with the new University building for the Niels Bohr Institute, amounting to DKK 300 million a year according to Peter Waaben Thulstrup, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and union representative for academic staff at the Faculty of Science.

Given that the University's Faculty of Science is Denmark’s largest science research and education institution, the scale of the job cuts is significant and will affect professors, technical staff, and research assistants – internationals and Danes alike.

However, Nynne Christensen, special consultant and union representative for technical and administrative staff at the Faculty of Science, says the cuts will not be evenly distributed, with some departments expected to bear more of the brunt than others. The ones she imagines being hit the hardest are the Department of Biology, the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, and the Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports.

Thulstrup warns that the decision will carry long-term consequences. Not only will certain research areas and specialised courses disappear entirely but the quality of education will also take a hit. "You can’t lay off that many people and still lift it to the same quality," she argues.

Students, who were informed of the impending layoffs via an internal memo, have voiced similar concerns about how the redundancies will affect their academic experience.

Read what they have to say at the link in the comments.

Photo: Jens Fink-Jensen

19/11/2025

As early election results make news, The Copenhagen Post's political analyst, Sune Steffen Hansen, says the message is unequivocal: voters are dissatisfied with the governing parties, and Socialdemokratiet (The Social Democrats, A) is at the centre of the backlash.

Explaining why he believes this is a worse than expected result for the party, Hansen said, "The Social Democrats seemed to get beaten both times at this election." Not only did they perform poorly in terms of vote share, he noted, but they also had little influence in most mayoral negotiations.

Hansen argues that the party's weak performance reflects a broader national trend of voter disappointment in the governing coalition. "It can't just be 98 different reasons because there are 98 municipalities," he said.

Expanding on this, he said, "It definitely tracks with the data we have that shows the Social Democrats are not doing very well in national polls either. A huge chunk of Social Democrat voters has drifted off since Store Bededag was abolished by the government, and they’ve not come back since,” he said.

At the same time, Hansen cautions against interpreting the results as a sign that Denmark is shifting decisively to the right. "It's not like DF (Dansk Folkeparti) suddenly got 30 percent of the votes," he said, adding that the gains made by blue-bloc parties such as Liberal Alliance (LA) and Danmarksdemokraterne (DD) in this election are a "small phenomenon" rather than evidence of a broader trend, given that their success was concentrated in only a few municipalities.

Read Hansen's full analysis of the results at the link in the comments.

19/11/2025

Sisse Marie Welling has done it! 🙌

Congratulations are in order for the Socialistisk Folkeparti (The Green Left, SF) member, who has become the capital city's first non-Social Democratic Lord Mayor in 100 years.

Her appointment follows a broad political agreement reached after overnight negotiations between several parties across both the red and blue blocs. All parties except Socialdemokratiet (The Social Democrats, A) and Frie Grønne (The Independent Greens, Q) endorsed her.

Announcing the news at City Hall, Welling said, "We have made history", while emphasising that the real work begins now.

Line Barfod was also in the running for Lord Mayor, and although the Enhedslisten (The Red-Green Alliance, Ø) candidate did not secure the top spot, she will return as Mayor for Technical and Environmental Affairs.

More updates at the link in the comments.

19/11/2025

As election results roll in, it's now official: Socialdemokratiet (A) will be excluded from mayoral negotiations in Copenhagen for the first time in a century.

Enhedslisten (The Red-Green Alliance, Ø) has clinched the largest number of votes in the capital at 22.1 percent, with Socialistisk Folkeparti (The Green Left, SF) close behind at 17.9 percent.

The Social Democrats, meanwhile, have slipped down to 12.7 percent. With this result, the party will not be calling the shots for the city's top seat, which will be decided after negotiations between Enhedslisten, Socialistisk Folkeparti, Alternativet (The Alternative, Å), Radikale Venstre (The Danish Social Liberal Party, B), and parties from the blue bloc.

Ideally, Enhedslisten's lead candidate, Line Barfod, would take the mayoralty, but Denmark's consensus-based politics means she must still secure backing from other parties.

Speaking to the press at City Hall, the Social Democrats' lead mayoral candidate in Copenhagen, Pernille Rosenkrantz-Theil, acknowledged the defeat. She had left a ministerial position to run for Lord Mayor of Copenhagen, a decision she reflected on, saying, "I knew I was taking a very big risk because we risked losing this. I knew that when I ran. I have always known it was nearly impossible."

Rosenkrantz-Theil was selected over outgoing Social Democratic mayor Lars Weiss, who was widely respected by many left-wing parties but ultimately sidelined by his own. As a result, Weiss did not run this election and has since retired from politics.

Read more about how things will unfold as Copenhagen decides on a non-Social-Democratic mayor for the first time in 100 years at the link in the comments.

Photo: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix

19/11/2025

In what has been one of the most heavily participated local elections in recent history, Venstre (The Liberal Party of Denmark, V) has emerged as the party with the most mayoral posts (39), taking over a distinction long held by Socialdemokratiet (The Social Democrats, A), which has so far secured 25 – with 12 mayoral seats still up for grabs.

For comparison, in the 2021 election, the Social Democrats won 44 mayoral seats versus Venstre's 34.

While we're drawing parallels, the Social Democrats dropped 5.2 percentage points from 2021 to win 23.2 percent of the overall votes this year, while Venstre slipped 3.3 percentage points to 17.9 percent. Net-net, that means that the Social Democrats remain the largest party in terms of total votes.

Despite Venstre's success in mayoral seats, the Social Democrats have retained leadership in several major cities. Frederiksberg, Aarhus, Odense, and Aalborg have all re-elected their Social Democratic mayors: Michael Vindfeldt, Anders Winnerskjold, Peter Rahbæk Juel, and Lasse Frimand Jensen, respectively.

The Social Democrats also performed strongly in the newly-formed Region Østdanmark, winning the largest slice of the voter pie (20.4 percent), followed by Det Konservative Folkeparti (The Conservatives, C) at 13.5 percent.

Meanwhile, in Region Midtjylland, patient safety scandals and administrative controversies have prompted residents to flip and vote blue, with Venstre's Anders G. Christensen defeating longtime Social Democratic chairman Anders Kühnau.

More updates on how the balance of power is shifting between Venstre and Socialdemokratiet at the link in the comments.

Logos: Venstre.dk; Socialdemokratiet.dk

18/11/2025

Like the rest of Denmark, Team Copenhagen Post woke up early today to capture the political zeitgeist.

While some headed to City Hall to catch the action and others remained glued to their desks at work to update the website with breaking election news, the rest of us visited Kalvebod Fælled Skole in Ørestad to hear from international voters in the neighbourhood that boasts the highest concentration of internationals in Copenhagen – 41.5 percent, according to Mayan Ni**od of Ørestad Innovation City Copenhagen.

Many of the international voters we met were enthusiastic first-timers, despite having lived in Denmark for several years.

For Abril, a dual Argentinian-Italian citizen, the simplicity and practicality of the process stood out. "It was so easy. I just feel there were many events in English that we could attend to understand what was happening," she said, adding that it was convenient to also have the option to vote in advance.

Nicole, from Cyprus, appreciated the more accessible Danish political debate format. "In Cyprus, everything's a bit more high-level. But here, Instagram and social media play a huge role in helping people understand what different parties stand for," she shared.

Jonas, who moved to Denmark from Lithuania four years ago, was casting a vote for the first time in his life. His biggest surprise? The enormous size of the ballot. "The paper you get for voting here is like a whole poster. It was a bit complicated to handle, but apart from that, everything was very clear," he said.

Chinese national Xinzhi was also experiencing her first election. “In China, we don’t really vote; things are decided by the party itself. So, here it is quite interesting that I can also choose. Of course, I’m not the person who actually chooses, but it’s part of my contribution. That’s the reason I came,” she explained.

Reflecting on why he showed up, Jonas added: "When you go vote, you at least cancel out the vote of someone you would disagree with in the worst case, but in the best case, you are actually voting for the future that you want. No one person has complete control over the outcome, but little by little, you can make something happen."

More on the internationals who showed up to make their voices heard today and what they had to say about the process and their motivations at the link in the comments.

18/11/2025

This morning began with a flurry of activity as candidates, policymakers, politicians, and citizens made their way to polling stations across Denmark's 98 municipalities and four regions to cast their votes in the local elections. Among them were 481,000 internationals who have the right to vote.

While official numbers on international voter participation are yet to filter in and results remain hours away, there has already been plenty of noteworthy democratic activity:
🗳 A Voxmeter for Momentum survey shows that two out of three voters expect to go cast their ballot alongside someone they know. Half said they would go with a partner or spouse, while one in ten planned to vote with their children.
🗳 Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (A) has already voted by mail, but still embraced election-day spirit by attending a spinning class. On Instagram, she wrote: "Good legs on election day. Remember, every vote counts! Happy election day to you all."
🗳 Danmarksdemokraterne's controversial leader Inger Støjberg cast her vote in Hadsund Hallen. This is the party's first time contesting a municipal election.
🗳 On the tiny island of Tunø in Odder Municipality, where the registered voters number just 63, nearly half have already voted – either by mail or in person. 🗳 Enhedslisten (The Red-Green Alliance, Ø) has announced that it will support Socialistisk Folkeparti's (The Green Left, SF) Sisse Marie Welling for Lord Mayor of Copenhagen, should SF secure the most votes.

We'll continue to track news keenly and report updates as they come in, so stay tuned and follow along at the link in the comments.

The Copenhagen Post

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