Stupidity Knows No Boundaries

Dansk Folkeparti (Danish Peoples Party) wants to copy the Hungarian government’s controversial border fence between Hungary and Serbia. A three meter tall border fence with barbed wire, surveillance cameras and a permanent border patrol on the Danish-German border. Walls and fences are apparently politicaly in fashion around the world but that does not change the act that Dansk Folkeparti’s latest idea is both at odds with EU law as well as being a terrible idea both short term and long term. This despite the fact that Dansk Folkeparti still supports the fixed Femern link to Germany. 

 

The building of the fence alone is estimated at costing 1,5 billion kroner. Danish companies and jobs are furthermore dependent on the direct export to Germany that constitutes nearly 20 % of Denmark’s total exports. The EU’s internal market is at the same time a huge benefit for Danish economy, which Dansk Folkeparti’s proposal would threaten and undermine. An analysis this year found that a typical Danish family stands to financially gain 65.000 DKK from the internal market.

 

Fences, barbed wire, border patrols etc should be a distant memory from our past. Germany is our good neighbour and partner and the symbolism alone would be detrimental. I work on a daily basis with Danish and German companies that constantly trade with each other and with customers across the border, and a permanent border fence would unravel years of work of creating an integrated Danish-German business region. Together with the economic and political consequences for Denmark, there is every reason to reject Dansk Folkeparti’s proposal for a permanent border between Germany and Denmark.

 

Photo: "Barbed wire" by Paul Hudson / CC BY 2.0