BENT - PROUD OF DENMARK

I came back from my mission in North Macedonia two days before the Danish Government stopped all international travel and realized that all my international missions would stop for many months.

We were not advised to see our friends and adult children. My wife still went to work and I was alone and desperately frustrated at home. Spent half a day visiting a friend to make a first attempt to empty her garden for flower bulbs and another half day to plant them in our garden. Two days later, I learned that the European Council due to the Corona virus had  postponed their conclusions about the 2-years Conference on the Future of Europe. In Europe’s People’s Forums People’s Forum we had invested heavily in advising the European Parliament and the European Commission on how to engage citizens in the policy making process. More frustration.

Finally, the children convinced my wife to work from home and not from the office, where she obviously found it socially more exciting to be. I spent yet a day emptying a friend’s garden and off we went to our Summer house to work from there and to plant and cultivate our vineyard during the breaks.

In a situation where millions of people are frustrated and scarred and restricted in their movements and social life it is also important to find better ways to reduce the effects of the expected second wave of the Corona virus in the Autumn. It stroke me during the last week, how little solidarity Denmark and other European countries showed to Italy, and how much the crisis has been used to build the egos of some of the worst presidents and prime ministers as chiefs in command.

A look at Hungary in which Orban through a new law wants the Parliament to give him all power until he feels it is not needed anymore, or in UK and US where the prime minister and president first pretended to save the economy and solve the corona crisis by letting the weak bury themselves and keep the industrial wheels running. It could be tempting in my very mature age to accept that letting a few thousand old and weak people in Denmark will be better for the young generations than a dire economic crisis. However, in UK and even in US most politicians still care about other people and still have a humanitarian perspective on the crisis that puts people above economy. So do I.

The last week has made me much more fund of Danish politics and politicians than I have been for several years. Every single political party stands behind the Government’s dire restrictions on our lives, and every single party stands behind the economic support to give employees, unemployed, students, independents and large companies a chance to survive this crisis without significant losses. For once all politicians are grown ups and responsible persons. I wish we will be able to spread this into a genuine solidarity towards the less rich countries inside and outside Europe. Then the crisis has not been in vain.    

Bent - Copenhagen / Gniben