The Minister of Justice Peter Hummelgaard has announced a new court case that aims to disband the Bandidos MC gang in Denmark.

As in a previous case brought against the gang Loyal To Familia, the new case will explore whether a provisional ban can be placed on the Bandidos group.

“Gang misbehaviour does not belong in Denmark. We must use all tools to put an end to their existence,” said the Minister of Justice at a press conference on Wednesday.

Hummelgaard also suggested that cases can be brought against other criminal gangs, “if the authorities assess there is a basis for it”, but declined to comment directly on whether this would include Hells Angels, according to TV2.

“There is a huge amount of work behind having collected and assessed the evidence and circumstances that must exist to ban an association according to the terms of the constitution. It’s not something you just do,” he responded instead.

“We don’t want organisations involved in violence and crime to be able to hide behind the Constitution. Therefore, a lot of effort is put into building cases that can stand up in court,” he continued.

Bandidos MC’s lawyer Michael Juul Eriksen told TV2 on Wednesday he is not surprised by Hummelgaard’s intention to prosecute.

In June 2023, the ministry announced that the police’s National Unit for Special Crime (NSK) would launch an investigation to determine “whether there is a legal basis for the dissolution of the group”.

At the time, Juul Eriksen stated that “Bandidos will have a very good chance of showing that they have a legitimate purpose”.

Today, he reflected that: “after it was announced last summer that they would look into whether a case should be brought, my client was summoned to give an explanation. But a few days before we were to carry out that questioning, we read in the press that a proposal had been submitted for a case to be brought,” he said.

On that basis, he believes there is little interest from the prosecution in hearing the testimonies of the Bandidos themselves.

Juul Eriksen also represented Loyal To Familia during their dissolution case. 

In September 2021, the Supreme Court upheld the judgement of the city and high court to ban Loyal To Familia by sentence.

The Supreme Court justified it with the fact that “we are talking about an association that has committed extensive and serious crime. Thus, the association has an illegal purpose and can be dissolved according to section 78, subsection 1 of the Constitution.”

Attorney General Jan Reckendorff first brought the case before the Prosecutor’s Office, and called the ruling an “important decision”.

“It is a historic and principled judgement, and now both the City, National and Supreme Courts have said that LTF can be banned because it is an illegal purpose,” Reckendorff told TV2 at the time.

It’s not every day that Enhedslisten and Dansk Folkeparti take a shared political stance, but the far-left and far-right parties, respectively, have found common ground in their disdain of the EU’s long-awaited ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’, which the European Parliament is due to vote on today.

After years of struggle by EU countries to manage migrant arrivals into the bloc, the European Commission proposed a broad policy reform in September 2020, aimed at establishing a clear and common framework for handling migration

Anders Vistisen from Dansk Folkeparti says that he is voting no to the pact:

“It is completely inadequate legislation that is now adopted five minutes before the election to try to reassure the people of Europe,” he told DR.

“The truth is that there is chaos at the outer borders, and they are now trying to put a band-aid on a broken leg. This legislation does not solve the fundamental problems.”

Enhedslisten’s Nikolaj Villumsen also intends to vote against the pact – though for completely different reasons.

“This is a missed opportunity. I would rather see this agreement renegotiated so that you could get a real solidarity distribution with help in the surrounding areas. The current agreement calls into question the right to asylum,” he said.

The Pact proposes new processes for handling refugees and migrants in EU countries. There is a focus on keeping new arrivals at the external borders, where there will be a faster screening process to determine whether the asylum seeker has the right to protection in the EU, or whether they can be sent back to their country of origin.

Not all Danish members of the European Parliament oppose the package of new proposals.

Venstre’s Morten Løkkegaard intends to vote in favour of the pact: “After all, this pact brings us one step further in this very delicate discussion about migration, which we have had for some years now. It is far from the solution to everything, but it is a step in the right direction,” he said.

He questions whether it will be possible to agree on anything in the area of ​​migration if this collection of laws is not voted through.

“You risk losing a small but significant step towards solving this problem. If you can’t even get through with this, it sends a signal that there is no agreement on that point in Europe at all, and that is the wrong signal to send in an EP election.”

SF’s Kira Marie Peter-Hansen is also predominantly positive towards the agreement – but will not vote in favour of all of its elements:

“We are extremely happy that an agreement on asylum and migration has finally been reached. It is obvious to everyone that the current system does not work. We are happy that we have a solidarity mechanism, and we hope that Denmark will make use of it,” she said.

Due to its special EU reservations, Denmark is exempted from having to accept laws passed in the European Parliament. However, the government is open to joining parts of the migration pact.

“We are going to join a number of the agreements that are in this asylum and migration pact. There are some things we will be left out of, including the forced redistribution of refugees that exists within the EU,” said Minister for Immigration Kaare Dybvad.

He added: “We are going to help in the way we already do by making contributions to the European countries that lie on the outer borders. For example, by providing naval and coastal vessels in the Mediterranean.”

The right-wing party Liberal Alliance has scrapped its 2035 economic plan and will no longer support a full abolition of the top tax. Instead the goal is to halve it, party leader Alex Vanopslagh told Jyllands-Posten, ahead of the party’s national meeting this weekend.

In the interview, he revealed only aspects of Liberal Alliance’s new economic plan, which is yet to be presented in full.

“Economic conditions may change, so if we present it now, we would have to adjust it and relaunch it right before the election. So it won’t be presented until later,” he explained.

Vanopslagh also voiced his intention that Liberal Alliance will become a leading government party: “The goal and hope is that we can become a leading government party, and it is in this light that we also believe that we must present a plan that can be implemented in one election period,” he said.

While Liberal Alliance’s incremental approach to reducing the top tax is new, the party’s ultimate stance – that the top tax must be removed – has not.

Vanopslagh also revealed that the party will not seek as many public sector budget cuts as previously announced.

Liberal Alliance, which currently has 15 seats in the Folketing, is polling very favourably. In the latest survey carried out by Epinion for DR, the party has 24 mandates – making it the third largest party in the Folketing.

This has fuelled speculation about whether Vanopslagh will put himself forward as a candidate for Prime Minister in the next election.

Speaking to Jyllands-Posten, he dismissed the idea: “It’s a no, understood in the sense that it’s not what fills up my head. If I had the choice between ‘you can become Minister for Equality and implement this plan you are going to present’, and ‘you can become Prime Minister, and then you will only be able to implement a fraction’, then I would take the position of Minister for Equality,” he said.

Meanwhile, the seasoned former Venstre politician Claus Hjort Frederiksen spoke favourably of Vanoplasgh’s potential candidacy in an interview with Berlingske on Sunday.

“It is quite obvious that he is at the head of the large right-wing party. Therefore, it is also obvious that he takes on that task,” he said.

In the past five years, 28 coastal municipalities have slowed coastal protection projects due to budget constraints, legislation and citizen opposition, according to a survey by the magazine Momentum, published by the National Association of Municipalities (KL).

The results, based on responses from 55 of Denmark’s 77 coastal municipalities, highlight the importance of long-term thinking to address the challenges posed by rising sea levels, says chair of KL’s Climate and Environment Committee Birgit Stenbak Hansen.

“A legislation change is required where civil resistance and misplaced concern for nature stands in the way of making necessary safeguards for coastal stretches,” she added.

In Seden Strandby in Odense Municipality, nature protection legislation has slowed the pace of work on a dyke to the west and north of the small district.

The area is part of the EU mapping Natura 2000, which ensures existing natural areas are protected. The dyke project, which proposes to cut through the gardens of several coastal houses to protect from storm surges, must work around these rules.

“It must be done properly, and we must take care of nature. It therefore takes longer and requires us to work in a different way than we would have done if the requirements were not there,” says the project manager on the EU project Climate Adaptation in Odense Michelle Moustgaard Birch.

The government has placed increased focus on coastal protection recently, in its so-called Climate Adaptation Plan 1, and in extending the ‘coastal pool’ – a grant scheme for municipalities to fund dykes and other coastal protection constructs.

In a written statement to Ritzau, Environment Minister Magnus Heunicke said: “We are looking at a future of more extreme weather and rising water levels, and therefore the government wants to speed up the coastal protection of Denmark.”