Military to help police with guard duties

From Wednesday, the government has decided to deploy the Armed Forces to relieve the police in guarding Jewish and Israeli sites in Copenhagen, but the soldiers’ union is not happy. Tom Block, chairman of the Army Private and Corporal’s Association (HKKF), wants to know which tasks in the Armed Forces are to be cut back to solve the extra work: “We haven’t solved our retention challenges yet. We are missing more than one in four colleagues. We have huge overtime backlogs to deal with,” says Block and adds, “So if we keep receiving assignments, I’d like to know what we are not going to do. Is it training Ukrainians? Is it the preparation of our mission to the Baltics next year? I’m worried that we’ll only see more tasks coming in.”
    Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard announced the decision on Saturday due to the current pressure on the police. Troels Lund Poulsen said that 90 personnel from the Armed Forces will be made available. The Armed Forces have previously helped the police with guarding tasks. That effort stopped in early 2022 as the security situation in Europe changed with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. According to the Police Act, the police may be assisted by the Armed Forces. /ritzau/