10 News
The Copenhagen Post cphpost.dk
22 - 28 February 2013
Danes now have to show booked flights and bank statements to prove they can finance their trip to India
Colourbox
India tightens visa rules for Danish tourists
Young, well-paid foreign workers put money into state coffers and place little burden on services
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ourists wanting to visit India have to provide much more documentation in order to be granted visas under new rules that came into effect on February 1. Danish citizens now have to present an invitation, paid plane tickets and hotel reservations as well as a letter from their bank proving that they have the financial means to cover the costs of living in India. Denmark seems to have been singled out for the special treatment as Swedes and Norwegians are not demanded to provide such comprehensive documentation. Stig Elling, the sales director at the travel agency Star Tours, called India’s new rules self-defeating. “It has become far more time consuming, as much greater demands are being made for information that in our opinion isn’t relevant,” Elling told Politiken newspaper. “It’s not smart if you want to attract tourists.” Elling added that the new rules are proving such a headache for the company that they are now considering whether or not to keep sending tourists to the world’s second most populous country. “It can only be described as
Skilled workers streaming in
If you want to see the Taj Mahal, be prepared to provide a lot of documentation
harassment of Danish tourists,” he said. “If they continue, we will have to consider whether the country is tourist-friendly enough.” Ravinder Kaur-Pedersen, the chairman of the DanishIndian association Dansk Indisk Forening, said she knew the new rules were irritating because they are the same rules that Denmark demands of Indian travellers wishing to come north. “Indians wanting to travel to Denmark have to satisfy a lot of requirements, and I understand the desire to protect your country,” Kaur-Pedersen said, adding that her sister was rejected for a
visa to Denmark despite fulfilling all the requirements. “I thought the demand for documentation was comprehensive, but there is still no guarantee that a visa will be issued and I have a hard time accepting that,” she said. Business people have had difficulty obtaining expedited visas following the 2011 decision by the Eastern High Court to not deliver Niels Holck to India to stand trial on charges of smuggling weapons to an Indian separatist group in 1995. The Indian Embassy has confirmed that the Holck case had an impact on how fast busi-
ness people can get visas. “It now takes longer for business people to get visas. It has something to do with the terrorist Kim Davy,” the Indian consul to Denmark, Shri Rakech Kumar, told Jyllands-Posten, using Holck’s alias. The Indian Embassy said that the new tourist rules are unrelated to Holck, and that India is simply enforcing rules that already existed. According to the association of travel agents, Dansk Rejsebureauforening, 35,000 Danes travelled to India last year – 10,000 of whom went there for business. (PS)
he number of educated workers from outside the EU coming to the country for jobs has increased fivefold since the early 1990s. The stream of skilled workers is largely due to clauses in the immigration laws that allow for educated workers who already have jobs to enter the country easier. Between 1991 and 1995, figures from Immigration Service (Udlændingestyrelsen) show that just over 3,000 workers were in the country under special job schemes. Between 2006 and 2010, that number spiked to over 15,000 and the trend continued in 2011 and 2012, with more than 8,500 permits being issued to highly-skilled foreign workers over those two years. If the trend continues, over 20,000 workers from outside of the EU will be adding to the country’s brain power by 2015. Industry advocacy organisation Dansk Industri (DI) said the foreign workers make Denmark more competitive in the world marketplace. “Many of the highly-skilled foreigners come with some very specific skills that contribute to the competitiveness of Danish companies and help to create jobs,” DI consultant Claus Seidelin told Politiken newspaper.
A 2011 study by the Centre for Economic and Business Research in Copenhagen showed that an average highly-educated immigrant with a family stays in Denmark for about eight years and contributes nearly two million kroner to the public purse. “Highly-skilled immigrants who come to the country under special schemes are very often earning high salaries,” Rasmus Højbjerg Jacobsen, a co-author of the study, told Politiken. “Since many of them are in their 30s or 40s, they rarely get sick and put a strain on society. They also often leave before they get old and become a burden.” The increase is partly the result of policy initiatives taken in recent years to attract highlyskilled workers, such as the green card scheme that allows highlyskilled foreigners to come to Denmark. Foreigners who have been offered a job with an annual salary of at least 375,000 kroner get very easy access to the labour market. The increasing influx of foreigners is also seen as proof that Denmark is still perceived as an attractive country to live and work in, at least for a few years. “It may well be that we have a high tax rate and have been hit by the financial crisis, but compared to other countries, things in Denmark still look pretty good,” Chantal Pohl Nielsen, a senior researcher at the Danish National Centre for Social Research, told Politiken. (RW) Scanpix / Keld Navntoft
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Over 60 percent of the respondents of a recent poll say Queen Margrethe should hand over the throne, but a historian says that the results are actually a sign of empathy for the queen
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hank you for your service, now step aside. That’s the message that a majority of Danes want to send to Queen Margrethe II, according to a new poll conducted by YouGov for metroXpress newspaper. Some 26 percent of the more
than 1,000 poll participants said that the queen should surrender the throne to her son, Crown Prince Frederik. An additional 35 percent said she should make way for Frederik, but just not right now. In all, over 60 percent said that the queen should voluntarily abdicate the throne. However, Lars Hovbakke Sørensen, a historian who is an expert on the Royal Family, told metroXpress that just because more Danes than not wanted her to retire, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are tired of
the queen. “I think that it is more of a sign that the way we view working life has changed,” Sørensen told the freesheet. “There is generally a greater understanding that the queen should also be entitled to retire and enjoy her old age. Therefore I think it is a sign of sympathy for the queen.” Regardless of the poll respondents’ motives, the 72-yearold queen has previously said that she has no plans to step aside and will remain Denmark’s monarch until she dies. (JC)