New compensation law to include all Cyprus soldiers

The employment minister, Mette Frederiksen, has dropped the 30-year retroactive time limit

The employment minister, Mette Frederiksen (S), has agreed to drop the 30-year retroactive time limit from the forthcoming law that will make it easier for soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to be granted compensation.

The turnaround by the government means that all the Danish soldiers who served in Cyprus as part of the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus, during and after the Cyprus Civil War, will be included in the law.

“I have been made aware that there are veterans and others who can be denied compensation because of the rule,” Frederiksen said, according to Avisen.dk. “I find this to be contrary to the intentions of the law.”

READ MORE: New PTSD law excludes Cyprus veterans

Cyprus vets pleased
Initially, the law would only have applied 30 years retroactively back to 1984, which excluded a number of veteran groups, including a large number of the 23,000 Cyprus vets who served there between 1964 and 1995, during which time 24 Danish soldiers lost their lives.

The new law, which is expected to be approved by parliament this spring, will repeal the controversial six-month rule that has prevented veterans from claiming compensation for PTSD if they can’t document that they’ve seen a doctor about their condition within six months of returning home from the field.

“I’m pleased that the minister has changed the law," Erik Tonny Hansen, the head of the association for the Cyprus veterans, Cypern-Veteranerne, told Avisen.dk.

"It would have been obscene for a nation like Denmark if some veterans were not included."

The law is expected to be ratified sometime in March.

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