New plan to help first-time home buyers, man gets prison in road rage case, government at odds over pesticides and more news from Denmark this Wednesday.
Government wants to help first-time home buyers with mortgages
The government says it wants to make it easier for first-time home buyers to get a mortgage.
Culture Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt told news wire Ritzau that, given the high cost of housing, people buying their first home should be given an advantage.
“In recent years, we’ve seen that a great many first-time buyers have been unable to get onto the housing ladder. The number of first-time buyers has fallen by almost 25 percent, and many young people are left pressing their noses against the window, unable to get in,” he said.
“We need to do something about that, because we know that owning your own home is generally both financially sound and attractive. The government and I want more Danes to own their homes,” he continued.
Specifically, the government is proposing increasing the repayment period on mortgages to 40 years and allowing mortgages of 80 percent of the value of the property.
This would lower mortgage repayments by around 6,700 kroner per borrowed million, equivalent to roughly 560 kroner per month, according to the government.
Man gets prison sentence for road rage shooting
The Østre Landsret high court yesterday sentenced a 41-year-old man to 12 years in prison for attempted murder after he fired at least six shots at another motorist on the Helsingør motorway in September 2023.
The verdict was announced by Copenhagen’s police prosecutor on social media X.
The convicted man, Morten Jørgensen, was driving in the middle lane of the motorway and flashed his lights at the car in front to get the driver to move over so he could overtake.
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Instead, the driver in front braked, prompting Jørgensen to pull out a pistol, he previously told the court.
The man whose car was shot at was not hit, but the windows of his vehicle were shattered.
Moderate party wants more regulation of pesticide use near water sources
Coalition party the Moderates say they are not happy with current government efforts to prevent pesticide contamination near drinking water sources.
The Moderates are therefore challenging the government’s own policy on the matter and calling for a national ban on pesticide use in protected zones around drinking water sources.
“We think things are moving too slowly and that too little is being done,” the party’s environment spokesperson, Henrik Frandsen, told Ritzau.
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Studies have repeatedly shown that pesticides from agricultural spraying seep into groundwater that is later extracted for drinking water.
Under current rules, local authorities are responsible for stopping spraying in areas close to water sources.
Danish music rights group sues AI music platform Suno
Danish music rights group Koda said on Tuesday that it was suing the American AI music platform Suno, accusing it of training its model for music creation on copyrighted songs.
Koda said Suno had “trained their AI model on Koda’s repertoire while concealing the scope and sources of the training data — failing to disclose what works were used and how”.
The group, which represents around 51,000 composers, authors and publishers, said it had evidence of the use of songs from famous Danish acts like Aqua and MØ among others.
“In all cases, Koda has concrete evidence that the copyright of each work has been infringed,” the group said.
More on this story here.
