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Effective immediately, the Danish government withdraws the order to kill all 17 million minks on the country’s fur farms.
– Sorry, we have given a wrong order in relation to the law, says today the Minister of Food Mogens Jensen.
Tuesday’s meeting at the Folketing was also canceled with urgent consideration of a new law.
Last week, Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen, Food Minister Mogens Jensen and the Statens Serums Institut (SSI) announced that all minks in Denmark should be killed, following the discovery of mutated versions of the coronavirus that has spread from mink to the humans.
Twelve people in North Jutland have been shown the mink variant of Covid-19, called cluster-5.
It is currently unknown how mutations in the virus will affect its properties and it is not known whether it has reached Norway. However, Norwegian health authorities fear that the new strain of the virus could reduce the effect of a future vaccine.
In Denmark, various legal experts have ruled that the order to kill 15 million minks is unconstitutional. The Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Mogens Jensen, also recognizes the Danish TV2.
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– We made a mistake. We have no legal authority to ask mink farmers to kill minks outside cleared areas. To demand it, we must have a legal basis for it. Therefore, it is also regrettable that a letter was sent to breeders where it was not clear that this was a government request, he says.
It does not happen for urgency
In a written response to Ekstra Bladet on Sunday night, Jensen wrote that the government considered the situation so dire that there was no time to wait for ordinary legal proceedings.
Originally, a new bill would be urgently considered in the Folketing on Tuesday. The plan has now been canceled, as the government has received no support from the opposition. Instead, it should be treated in the usual way, with three treatments.
Under the Danish constitution, this means that an amendment to the law is not implemented until 30 days after its adoption.
In an urgent procedure as envisaged in today’s Folketing, a change in the law would have taken effect immediately under the “umbrella” state of emergency due to the corona pandemic.
Then it has become clear in the last two days that the government’s crisis law would have been rejected.
Sorry – max 7.8 kilometers
Today, the Minister of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, Mogens Jensen, sent a letter of apology to all of Denmark’s mink farmers and an explanation of what his ministry, according to the government, has misinterpreted.
With current Danish law, the government cannot issue such a general murder order. The distance to an established infection mink farm must be less than 7.8 kilometers for the authorities to order such a killing order to the neighbors.
However, the Minister maintains the call to breeders to contribute to controlling the infection situation, killing their animals.
– What it is about now is to help public health in the best possible way, he says.
