
Conservatives reject citizenship bill
The Conservative Party (De Konservative) of Denmark did not vote in favor of granting citizenship to numerous applicants, resulting in their exit from the 2021 citizenship agreement. The party’s citizenship spokesperson, Brigitte Klintskov Jerkel, labeled some applicants as ‘serial criminals’ and criticized the difficulty of monitoring criminality due to automatic deletions in the criminal register. The Conservative Party abstained by voting yellow, neither for nor against, the citizenship of 2064 people. The minister for immigration and integration Kaare Dybvad Bek argued that abstaining undermines the purpose of agreements and that the party cannot remain in the agreement group if they do not support proposed legislation. Following the vote, the ministry announced a new agreement, excluding the Conservatives, which increased the citizenship application fee from 4,000 to 6,000 Danish kroner.