LWID S3E2 | Taxes for War, Declining Interest Rates, Improved Psychiatric Support

Say hello to Fionn, one of our new resident Irish co-hosts. This week, Fionn and Kalpita are joining forces to discuss both good news - interest rates continue to lower for aspiring homeowners and expansion of psychiatric support on the emergency hotline 112, and not so good news (i.e. increasing Denmark’s NATO contributions to 5%). 

In this episode:

1. 112 hotline will support psychiatric emergencies from 2026 (01:02) 
2. Interest rates expected to fall as low as 1.1% by summer (10:50)
3. 90B DKK needed increase NATO contributions to 5% (15:53)
4. The "shift towards a wartime mindset" (24:39)

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Chapters

• 1:02 Support for psychiatric emergencies on 112 next year
• 10:50 Interest rates to fall to 1.1% by summer
• 15:53 Increasing NATO contributions to 5%?

Transcript

0:00

[Music] Hi everyone, we are at the second episode of Last Week in Denmark and you are with Kalpita, that's me, and I have Fionn with me for the very first time. How are you Fionn? I'm good, thank you so much. Happy to be here. I'm so glad we're doing this. I remember we did this during the trial session and it went so smoothly. I'm so so excited we're talking again. Well now you've put the expectations high so I I know any second now I'm gonna mess it up. It only gets better, I'm telling you. Well today we're talking about one very important topic and lots of speculation around it and there are two other topics. One is probably like a repeat from last time maybe and one is an exciting development actually. Let's start with the psychiatric emergencies. The government is investing a 113 billion kroner in developing a psychiatric emergency line which will be 112 and you can actually call it as soon as next year to report any psychiatric emergencies. I think it's a great thing. What do you think? Yeah, I think absolutely it's something that's really needed to to a large degree or maybe let me rephrase that. I think what's needed has been this clarity. You know I think it's no surprise to anyone that if you've read the news over the last few years there's increased talks of there being a mental health crisis in Denmark and kind of across the world and for a large part of that I think that is maybe chronic things or things that people have to deal with every day but of course small things can can get bigger and come to a head and when people are having a psychiatric crisis or in a very very bad place that requires emergency services or treatment they need to be able to get that in the right place and I think that's what this is really aimed at addressing. When you know this news was kind of reported I was looking at a report from the Danish Health Authority or the Sundhedsstyrelsen if I'm not messing that up too badly and they actually put forth this proposal back in December of last year which the government is is adopting and it really wanted to explore two things. One was strengthening telephone access to emergency psychiatric care and the other was strengthening acute treatment efforts in the regions which of course is where the health services are managed by the regions and what I found was both very interesting but also kind of scary was they found that those real challenges that people are having when accessing particularly emergency psychiatric care by phone. Very many of the people didn't understand or were having trouble navigating between the various public emergency lines to actually get the right help and there are kind of multiple options at the moment so you have what's essentially like the acute medical coordination which is what handles emergency 112 calls already but you also have psychiatric emergency departments and where they maybe can take calls but they don't always or not all of these services have the ability to actually refer people to regional psychiatric treatments or actually get them the emergency help that they need. Those two call services today I think they were handling around more than 300,000 psychiatric calls last year so that's already an enormous number but there's a lot of civil organizations and municipalities that offer phone counseling services to citizens who are in acute mental health crises or dealing with psychiatric problems and they also handle around 300 actually a little bit more than 300,000 calls annually as well and there they don't have the services it's actually refer people to treatment centers and very often the counselors don't have psychiatric qualifications so they are more counselors and so I think the key kind of recommendations or the top recommendation that I took from reading through that report was really strengthening the telephone access so having a very very clear emergency psychiatric help for citizens so they know where to go and they're not trying to rely on different ones that maybe can give you know a listening ear which is also important but in acute cases in emergency cases can't actually refer people where they need to be and integrating that to 112 which is you know the general emergency services so it becomes very clear you know you shouldn't have to have any doubt if you or somebody you love right is going through an emergency whether they're at risk of suicide or hurting themselves or somebody else the number is kind of the same as any other emergency and I think that clarity is very welcome. Yeah and I'm reading the the press release here and it says it's 113.3 million in 2025 and 150 million in 2026 towards this emergency hotline and it includes strengthening existing or new treatment options that can be referred to which also is it's a bit hopeful I think because you are getting not only help but you're getting experts on the line which is very very helpful I remember we had to use this emergency number funny thing around my wedding when I got married and I had this rash and I've never had a rash in my life I'm not allergic to anything and they were really really helpful and we had immediately about four to five doctors assessing my situation giving me exactly what was wrong what was the analysis what my husband needed to do and everything went fine and to have that especially for people with mental health is and given the times where we are in and having declared emergency situation already since last year I think it's the whole the strain on the people and then to have such a helpline is going to be so much valuable as well and I think from an international citizen perspective as well I've heard many friends and colleagues that they have had trouble with getting the right help especially when it comes to mental health and if they come from any previous condition that they don't either be taken seriously or they have a long wait or you know they have to go through the assessment right from the beginning and I hope that this emergency hotline is going to help avoid those lengthy times and those lengthy processes and come immediately as soon as possible at least to do a good suggestion that can actually help people have you ever experienced an emergency of any kind of nature actually but especially mental health related yeah I'm lucky enough that I haven't personally I think like anyone I've known people right who've gone through mental health struggles or our mental illness and I think one thing that I think has been very positive over maybe the last decade or so is the somewhat de-stigmatization of talking about that and I've actually it's been one of those slight culture shock moments positive culture shock moments that I've had being in Denmark and seeing you know a politician step away from the role like a sitting government minister because of depression or because of stress and actually I just remember thinking wow where where I come from I don't think that would ever happen because the politicians themselves or maybe even the general public might you know just immediately label that as well they're not up to it and yet people wouldn't do that if that person had cancer or that person you know broke a leg and of course there are differences but at the same time mental health is is part of health and yeah as I say I'm lucky enough to not have had to go through something like this and as a dad with two small kids I'm always you know waiting for the time you know at the moment in the playground where you're going to have to go to the hospital at some point it hasn't come yet thankfully right but I think just exactly as you said as an international there's often been times when I felt oh the just the system typically is it can be a bit complex it can be a bit arcane doubly so you know if you're dealing with that through your second or third language and having something that are in those worst moments it should be as simple as okay here's the like internationally recognized emergency phone number well there I can hopefully get the help I need especially given the current situation or that you know the previous situation where mental health helplines or emergency helplines did exist but weren't always staffed or they weren't 24 hour and I think I don't know maybe this just in as I see it plays into a really positive trend overall of those services getting the the support that they need yeah and I totally agree and I'm so glad our money and taxes are going in the right places I think it's a great time to talk about something totally and completely different to this is uh Denmark's national bank continues to cut interest rates and they expect it to go as low as 1.1 percent by the summer that sounds quite lovely it does right um I think maybe the the only people who don't greet that news with the with happiness are whoever is looking at the profit line or cost a profit margin in a bank somewhere right but I think everywhere else is is quite happy and of course this comes in a broader context right the Denmark's national bank follows and is the policy to follow typically the European central bank and we've seen I think this is the fifth ECB rate cut you know one has been announced or it was cut sorry not even announced but it was cut on Thursday and that's the the fifth in uh since June and this is mostly driven by arguments that the the kind of biggest inflation surge you know that we've seen in generations has mostly been defeated and yet at the same time Europe overall and you could also potentially argue this a bit with with Denmark that there is a flagging economy that needs a little bit of relief yeah um I totally agree I mean it's it's a happy change introduction for especially those making investments in property but other than that it also opens opportunities for lifestyle purchases you can get a car like we spoke about EV is getting expensive last time maybe it's a good time to invest in a EV right now before it gets really really expensive and you just absolutely cannot do without one but similarly there are I know people who also like to invest in in summer houses and also recreational activities which which do cost a lot of money and it's often a thing among this society at least to borrow money for better lifestyle or health or whatever else so I think that's um that's good news overall except for the banks yeah and I mean it's uh it's probably more of a mixed picture for the banks right then something that is completely completely negative but um I think you know if you if you are somebody who's investing in property or you're you're somebody looking at buying a first property for that matter there's probably more good news to come in that front a lot of economists expect that there'll be further ECB rate cuts which typically would would affect the Danish national bank and that's also why of course we see the prediction that the Danish national bank and the interest rates here could cut even further by the summer so they could get down to that very low percentage and I think that's you know where the overall eurozone interest rate is at the moment or the ECB interest rate at the moment it's it's kind of teetering at the edge of what they called it the neutral level so that's a level where they say you know it's neither stifling nor nor inflating or enhancing economic growth and I think you know we've talked yeah about price pressure a lot I think everybody has has felt it and there's also talk in some cases of both poor productivity and labor shortages so that will maybe stifle a little bit how just how far some of these rate drops can go but I also think you know even quite recently there was a lot of size of relief maybe from policymakers that the tariffs which hit China and Mexico and Canada had not been leveled at the EU or or Denmark yet for that matter just yesterday unfortunately Donald Trump said yes absolutely you know we're going to tariffs tariffs towards the EU and that may as well be playing a factor in any kind of future rate cuts as well or or adjustments there because of course if there are punitive measures being taken by the US over yeah slides or perceived slides or Greenland or wherever else it's most likely I would say that we will see it's reaching kind of a further rate drop but you could also argue maybe some of that's already being penciled in yeah but I mean make a while the sun shines no absolutely absolutely speaking of tariffs and percentages the biggest news that's coming out is that we need to have 90 billion this time I'm getting it right it's 90 billion Danish corner to live up to the 5% NATO requirement for defense spending that is a big big amount and one of the think tanks has very smartly suggested three options of doing that one is we work more yay second is cut welfare yay bound to be popular or introduce a war tax yay yay yay this one's going to be a tough one yeah we really just wanted to you know take take the podcast in a direction where we'll end on a fun and positive note right I think it is dramatic definitely to say to say the least when you look at those numbers I mean I don't know about you I I unfortunately don't have 90 billion corona in spare change in my pocket but I think you know this number of 5% is a little wild if you ask me and just for some context I mean if you've been listening to Donald Trump the first time around he very often in that kind of 2016 to 2020 term of his battered on about you know NATO members not pulling their weight and needing to reach that that 2% and which to present being the NATO's guideline of GDP spending on defense and there has actually been a really dramatic change so if you look at 2014 I was looking at actually this was from a press release from NATO itself so if you look at 2014 there was only three members of NATO which was the US the UK and Greece who met that 2% figure do you want to guess what the number is now 3% it's it's a lot more so the numbers 23 members now are above the 2% yeah including Denmark so Denmark is just under 2.4% and yet to suddenly go up to 5% is like it's wild as you say it's 90 billion kronor wild so the highest spending you know percentage wise of any of the NATO countries is Poland which last year spent just over 4% and they they aim to boost it to 4.7% this year but for pretty much everyone else this is so far from where they are today and the US itself is at 3.4% so that would also be an absolutely enormous jump and this is I think one of those moments where you know Trump was often described as well don't take him literally take him seriously yeah and you know if Trump wanted the US itself to jump up to 5% it would be really difficult to see how that would actually fit with his own you know domestic calls to slash government spending and that's a key part of his political message right this this time around but you can also say well is this demand one that's being really designed to be failed and as all there was Ruth Dermond who is a senior lecturer at the Department of War Studies at Kings College which might be one of the coolest titles I've ever heard in my life and you know she was saying well maybe the intention is for states to fail and then you can think well either it is a somewhat good faith argument to you know well shoot for the moon and even if you fail you're still up there with the stars so you know set this really high target and and bully so to speak your NATO neighbors so that they don't maybe hit the 5% but they you know get a bit of a boot up the bum and get up to 3 or 4% at a huge cost right or is it a case where Trump wants to set up NATO for failure and that's obviously a very serious kind of topic or idea but he has you know come out with a lot of statements around something like this and not wanting to contribute more to NATO so yeah I look at that and I say okay I would not take this seriously or literally sorry but I would take it seriously I totally agree well one of the things that happened today was I had some Danish family over and I brought this topic up that hey this is one of the things that we're going to talk about and the immediate reaction was yeah well maybe we can do this so we can do that or we can do it like this so we can do it like that and it suddenly struck me that you know we don't have to actually listen to this guy we can oppose him we can set our own agenda as well and we can also make demands because if he needs I mean he needs the NATO and NATO needs the US as well so there has to be a middle ground that we all can meet at at the same time it does make sense what you say that you know shoot for the moon and you get luckily if you do close to the stars and perhaps that's his that's his agenda but at the same time I do like the European Union's in general response to everything that he's been trying to stir so far is basically to put a united front and I am a big fan of that because it's it's in some way creating the right waves in Europe and for all good reasons and if for whatever reason if if especially the European members decide to bend a knee to this guy it'll get more more and more difficult and serious for us but at the same time I think he's also in some way inducing a work an economic crisis which is not only in his backyard but also in the neighborhood so to speak and I don't and I don't think that's a great thing I do I do in some way a little bit I might have my differences but a little bit trust into the smart people that are working in Denmark NATO especially and the European Union to do not make the do not snowball this to whatever it has already yeah I think there's I can't remember the name of it but there is a term for not worrying about something because you have confidence that somebody much smarter out there is working on this and I think that's at least where I hope as well and you know this it does absolutely come in a context of well a broader context right and it comes in a context of of Greenland of tariffs of Trump generally you could say talking talking back about the EU and talking back about NATO but you know when you think about Trump he always positions himself as this businessman and it's you know the art of the deal and you can very often see his worldview almost as in and you see this a lot with trade that you're either getting screwed or you're the one screwing somebody else so everybody who has a trade surplus with the US well they're screwing us it's time for us to screw them and that is not a game I want or a worldview right that I want the EU or Denmark for that matter to to lean into and say well okay we need to to volley back any serves of that type that that he's doing and there is you know there is absolutely I think a shift towards what the NATO Secretary General Mark Groot called a shift towards a wartime mindset in terms of national planning now he himself said it was too soon to be setting an exact spending goal but especially when you look at across the EU and when you look especially like the closer to Russia actually that a country is you are seeing higher spending and you are seeing countries agreeing that like typically yes well the 2% might not be enough and we may need to up that or in you know that it could be seen as being insufficient to meet regional defense plans and the kind of capability that the Alliance thinks it needs to to react to threats that are opposed to it and I think you were mentioning to me before we got on air about how Denmark itself is is kind of leaning into that right and maybe is not spending that 90 billion already but is already spending or signing off on spending quite a huge sum on defence for the Arctic that's 14 billion kronor and that's the news up on the defence ministry as well and it's a it's in close cooperation with the ferroes government and the government of Greenland and I have a list of things that they are going to initiate under this agreement is new Arctic ships to solve efficiency and flexibly solve tasks in Greenland and carry capabilities such as helicopters and drones which is what we need right now long-range drones as well and the other thing is improved situational and intelligence picture I'm also assuming this is with relation to the environment as well so not only defence in in in the exact word of meaning of the word and increased enrolment in the Arctic basic education which I think is also very very timely I mean high time that it was it was done already but I'm glad that they're focusing on it this time as well and the partial agreement also aims to strengthen public safety with an emphasis placed on ensuring investments to support local jobs and local businesses in Faroe Islands and Greenland which also brings me back to the point of the suggestions that this think tank has made of three not so very agreeable things is cutting sorry cutting welfare which is totally unfair I think and introducing a war tax which is even more unfair and having people to work more I think I will make an official petition through this podcast actually to instead invest resources time and energy in in building opportunities and giving internationals and all those who are very fantastically educated in all kinds of fields jobs so there are more people in the job market you then people are paying more taxes anyway and you already got welfare with that so maybe there is a strategic way of looking at it than just asking citizens to pay more this way or the other I think that's that's a completely ridiculous suggestion to come from a think tank of all things yeah I mean I think there's as I say there's always many roads to roam and I think when you look at the response from politicians kind of across the spectrum here in Denmark to this news it wasn't all like oh great well that's cut welfare and forced people to work longer and introduce a war tax which I saw you know under that kind of framework that they provided there right to reach that 30 billion per percentage boost it was an enormous levy on you know ordinary working families and I don't think anywhere I saw there was a political appetite for that one thing I did think was actually quite interesting and I apologize in advance if I'm getting this wrong I believe it was from one of the members of Enhedslisten kind of not dismissing out of hand the idea of a war tax but it not being a war tax so actually investing money or keeping money for general emergency so you could almost say a rainy day fund but for very very rainy days so whether that be for you know defense spending and preparedness but also combating things like climate change and when you just think about where the world is at the moment I've been reading a few articles this week referring to you know we're kind of in a historical inflection point right we have climate change we have a lot of regional conflicts that you know we cross our fingers but could boil over into something larger and of course you have the AI revolution as well and now this is really you know a tangent but investing in well how do you protect your citizens from those threats if you want to put them that way embrace the opportunities that you can and that can be in you know the absolute view in the Arctic and that's what I like about you know hearing the plan here that it is there is defense spending in it it's an enormous sum but it is not only defense it's also making every day or it should be aimed at making every day citizens across whether it's Denmark or the Faroe's or Greenland's lives better overall because not to sound overly sappy but you know well what is it that you're fighting to defend and I think Denmark is is known internationally for having a certain kind of culture and one way of life and social safety net and suddenly eroding all of that just at the expense of defense spending is it would be an enormous sacrifice more so than just just a monetary one oh yeah absolutely and when all of that stress of being in war not being in war but just being in crisis no matter where you look and what what you do is hopefully not landing you in a mental health crisis and if that's so then we will have an opportunity to call and get help yeah but that brings us to the end of our lovely second episode thank you for being with me Fionn likewise it's been a pleasure even if we're talking about such fun topics as interest cut interest rate cuts you know and maybe less uplifting topics like psychiatric emergencies or war taxes but nevertheless it's been an absolute pleasure thank you very much and hopefully next week is much more positive so please stay tuned and have a good weekend have a good week everybody bye