Denmark to spend billions on compensation deal for mink farmers

Up to 18.8 billion kroner (around €1.6 billion) will be given to mink breeders and people in related industries who lost their livelihoods when the government ordered animals to be culled and the industry shut down last November, after the outbreak of a mutated form of coronavirus at fur farms.

The exact figure is not known before individual claims have been assessed. Around 1,000 mink fur farms operated in Denmark prior to November’s dramatic shuttering of the industry.

READ ALSO:

• Denmark introduces year-long ban on mink farming after cull
• Danish PM apologises for handling of mink crisis during far farm visit
• 'We're in shock': Denmark's mink farmers despair as livelihood dies with animals

A broad majority of parties in parliament have backed the deal, including the governing Social Democrats along with the Liberal and Liberal Alliance parties from the right wing and the Social Liberal and Socialist People’s parties from the left.

“This deal gives a fair and reasonable compensation so mink breeders can move forward,” acting finance minister Morten Bødskov said.

The deal includes a scheme to enable mink breeders to re-establish businesses once the current ban on the industry expires, as it is set to do on December 31st this year.

“We have negotiated from compensation which in no way would have covered the debts incurred by the industry to a situation in which there will be reasonable compensation,” said Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, leader of the Liberal party, in reference to the drawn-out negotiations over the deal.

A large part of the compensation package will be used to service the debts of mink farmers, Ritzau writes.

Parties not signatory to the agreement and other commenters reacted by highlighting the magnitude of the sum to be spent by the Danish state compensating mink farmers.

The agriculture spokesperson with the right-wing Danish People’s Party (DF), Lise Bech, tweeted that DF had not supported the deal because it wanted financing for resurrected businesses to be “cheaper for the state”.

“The government would not change a comma of the draft proposal on the table this evening,” Bech wrote.

“18.8 billion for some mink? You gotta be kidding me,” wrote lawmaker Sikandar Siddique of the recently-formed Independent Green party.

“I never again want to hear that we have no money for climate, nature, schools, the underprivileged, homeless, refugees, hospitals, childcare, a shorter working week, asylum seekers, better housing,” he wrote.

In a second tweet, Siddique said it was “crazy” to spend “billions and billions on dead mink and a sick industry”.

The government initially ordered the all minks in the country to be culled on November 4th after a mutated version of the new coronavirus was detected at its mink farms and had spread to people. The mutated form is now considered to have been eradicated.

The culling order issued by the government was later found to be illegal, and an official commission has since been appointed to scrutinize it.