Jacob Christensen

Since my guest post on Ideas on Europe has led various people to contact me with different kinds of offers, then let me just note that:

I do not accept unsolicited guest posts nor offers about advertising. This is a personal blog and on the few occasions when I have let others publish on this site, this has been from people I know very well in real life.

If you have specific comments to posts, you are welcome to write a comment but please note that all comments are moderated to avoid spam.

Kthxbai

As stated in the right-hand column, I predict that the Danish general election will be held during September – and this again means that the election is likely to be called in late August or early September. I have papers to write etc. etc. so I will take a blocation with no updates until mid-August but, if necessary, I will be around.

I’m working on a chapter about the organisational history of ATP, the Danish supplementary labour market pension, and visited the ATP Building in the outskirts of Hillerød on Wednesday.

It is extremely rare that Denmark gets extensive media coverage in Germany (think: Euro 1992), and given Germany’s lack of interest in the Fehmer Belt-connection it is reasonable to assume that what worries the German government is not so much the bureaucratic hassle that German tourists can expect at the German-Danish border (after all, Germans can use the Saßnitz – Trelleborg link) than the repercussions on the European arena, now that France and Italy have already called for the reintroduction of border controls.

Anyway, the general theme in these reports is “the reintroduction of permanent border-controls“:

Ãœber der offiziellen Ankündigung der neuen Pläne steht als Ãœberschrift “Permanente Zollkontrolle in Dänemark“. Was darunter an neuer Bemannung von Ãœbergängen, den Bau von Kontrollgebäuden und der Installation elektronischer Ãœberwachungsanlagen aufgeführt ist, klingt ebenfalls eher nach Wartezeit für Reisende.

Links:

Die Zeit 1, 2.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 1, 2.
Die Welt 1.
Tagesschau 1, 2.

Sign o’ the times? I first learnt about the killing of Osama bin Laden via Twitter.

Also (for Scandinavian readers): Ich bin Laden proudly brought to you by Egoland.

Instead of publishing a new post about the Chernobyl disaster, I decided to republish my reflections on April 26, 1986 from 2006:

April 26, 1986 was the first warm spring day in Copenhagen. During the spring semester of 1986, I had a rather odd schedule: One of the courses I followed (European Security Policy with Wilhelm Christmas-Møller as teacher), had classes during the morning and the other (Theoretical approaches to international politics with Bertel Heurlin) during late afternoon.

So, what to do when you have three hours between classes and it’s finally warm outside? You go for a walk.

If my memory doesn’t fail me completely, I spent some hours walking around Kastellet – a beautiful old garrison in the northern part of the old town – enjoying the sunshine.

It was only when I came home in the evening that I learned that the Chernobyl power plant had exploded.

My immediate reaction was to shut all of my windows because of the radiation. My next reaction was to think that there was no reason to do so: First, Denmark hadn’t been hit too hard by the fallout from the disaster and second, as I had been outdoors for much of the day, I would already have been subjected to any possible fallout and an open window wouldn’t make too much of a difference.

And the rest, as they say, was history.

Where bureaucratic arrogance meets corporate stupidity is where you will find the Danish Ministry of Education, or “Undervisnings ministeriet” as it wants to be known as. That the minister can’t add two numbers is already known but that the ministry doesn’t care about the basic rules of Danish orthography … well, this is the country where Helge Sander was Minister for Science for nine years, so we should have seen it coming.

Or to put it in Danish

Al tsåb ared etsk alop fatt esso metl ogom åman dele orde neli geso mman harl ystt il

On a more general note, the visual identity of the Danish government on the web and elsewhere remains a complete and utter mess. Obviously the big difference between Denmark and Sweden is that the Danish ministries are not, technically, departments under one Government Office but given that ministries are set up and abolished on a regular basis and parts of portfolios shuffled around, it really would make sense to set up the domain www.regeringen.dk and make the ministries appear as subdomains (e.g. finans.regeringen.dk, udenrigs.regeringen.dk etc).

And finally, I would love to see the Danish government make some kind of systematic policy for publishing white papers, reports parallel to the Swedish SOU and Ds.

Please remind me that I should have an opinion about this rant at some point.

Update: I’ve had an opinion. It’s comment #22 or something.

My formal (as in economic) link with the Danish Welfare History project ended at the turn of the month. As it is, I am still waiting for final confirmation of another project which is due to begin on 1 April (and that is no joke).

After taking a long, hard look at my bank account – I am by no means a rich man, but I have no debts in any form either – I decided to take the next couple of months from my savings, finishing manuscripts (sigh) and perhaps even try to start on something I’ve promised to deliver in August.

On the other hand, as any good political scientist ought to know “final confirmation” should be considered a potential veto point, so if there is a rejection (less likely) or a delay (possible), things do look a bit different. As in the question “What is plan B for a (by then: former) university researcher and lecturer?”

There are some bears out there that I wish had been shot (by myself and others) by now, but that’s life.

And don’t worry: I’ll be keeping an eye on the Danish political scene. Not quite as surprising as the Egyptian one but still worth a glance for those concerned.

PS: What? No unemployment insurance? Well, I am a member of an unemployment fund and as such qualified for unemployment benefit but a) I’m really doing some work the next couple of months and b) there are enough stories about dysfunctional activation that my time and money are better spent elsewhere for the moment.

Weekend-Avisen repeats its annual “predicting the coming year”-quiz. Time to play pundit-at-large:

1. Will Josefine Klougart be awarded the Litterature Prize of the Nordic Council.

No.

2. Will Denmark get a Social Democratic-led government after the general election?

Yes.

3. Will Mogens Jensen become minister of cultural affairs?

Hmmm… No. (Depends a bit on the distribution of portfolios in a coalition government)

4. Will professional cyclist Matti Breschel win the cycling world championship?

No.

5. Will Susanne Bier win a Golden Globe for the film Hævnen/Revenge?

No.

6. Will a Danish artist be awarded The Golden Lion during the Venice Biennale?

No.

7. Will Caroline Wozniacki still be #1 on the WTA ranking on December 1, 2011?

No.

8. Will the Social Liberal Party join a Social Democratic-led government following the general election?

Yes.

9. Will the Danish government set up a commission to examine the separation of state and church in Denmark?

No.

10. Will the Chinese Central Bank raise its rate to more than 7% during 2011?

No.

11. Will Jussi Adler-Olsen still be in the top-10 on the German bestseller-list in December 2011?

Yes.

12. Will the Danish national football team qualify for Euro2012?

Yes.

13. Will Lene Espersen still be the leader of the Conservative Party in December 2011?

No.

14. Will Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner be reelected as president of Argentina?

Yes.

15. Will FC København reach the semi-finals of Champions League in the spring of 2011?

No.

16. Will Poul Erik Tøjner be selected as Business Manager of the Year in 2011?

No.

17. Will Philip Roth be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2011?

Hmmm… No.

18. Will Spain receive an economic rescue package from the EU during 2011?

Yes.

19. Will Liberal Alliance receive a larger share of the vote than the Conservative Party at the general election?

Hmmmmm … No.

20. Will open war break out between North and South Korea during 2011?

Well. Here’s hoping: No.

And since we have the results of the 2010 quiz, let us see how well I did:

1. Denmark did not qualify for the semi-finals in the 2010 football World Cup. Correct.
2. Jens Christian Grøndahl did not change publishers. Wrong.
3. Caroline Woznicki did not win a Grand Slam tournament. Wrong.
4. Lars Løkke Rasmussen did reshuffle his government. Correct.
5. The Iranian regime and president Ahmadinedjad were not overthrown. Correct.
6. There was no binding agreement after COP-16. Correct.
7. The Danish government did not set up a commission to examine the separation of state and church in Denmark. Correct.
8. No Danish rider won a stage in the 2010 Tour de France. Wrong.
9. Health warnings were not introduced on wine bottles in Denmark. Correct.
10. Neither Ida Jessen nor Peter Laugesen were awarded the Litterature Prize of the Nordic Council. Correct.
11. The US Government did not go bankrupt. Correct.
12. The Sweden Democrats won more than 4% of the vote in the Swedish general election. Correct.
13. MECOM did not sell parts or all of Berlingske Media. Correct.
14. Sophie Marceau was not cast in a leading role in a Lars von Trier film. Correct.
15. The Maldives did not disappear under the sea level. Correct.
16. Helge Sander was not Minister of Research after 1 December 2010. Correct … (YES!, YES!!, YES!!! Except: Who the heck succeeded him? Does anybody remember?)
17. Bob Dylan did not attend the opening of the exhibition of his paintings and drawings at the Danish National Art Gallery. Correct.
18. Keith Richards and Jack White did not record a cd. Correct.
19. Nikolaj Znaider was not awarded the Sonning Music Prize. Correct.
20. Peter Ramsdal is still the vicar at the Brorson Church in Copenhagen. Correct.

Well, that’s 17 out of 20. Not bad for a pundit, eh?