NARCIS
Hello, everyone. This is the first episode of season three, Last Week in Denmark podcast. I hope you have missed us. We are coming back with a new concept, this time with a lot more voices that can entertain you and inform you about what's happening in Denmark in a shorter concept because, you know, time is precious and we know that, you know, the less time you spend on listening the news, the better. So we will use the time that you can give towards information as efficiently as possible. So from now on, our podcast will be just 30 minutes long. They'll be focused on three main stories from the previous week that are, let's just say, more interesting for our international audience. By all internationals, I mean people with another ethnic background that live in Denmark. So, as I said, we are six cohosts, and in each episode, you'll meet a mix of two. Today, this episode is being run by me, Narcis George Matache. And together with me I have Kalpita Bhosale.
KALPITA
Hiya!
NARCIS
Hello, Kalpita. Welcome to your first time on Last Week in Denmark podcast.
KALPITA
Yes, thank you. Super, super excited.
NARCIS
I know our audience doesn't know this, but we actually, I know you had a trial run with some of the cohosts and, from what I understand was, it went quite well?
KALPITA
Yeah, successful one. We... we spoke about the three top news of the last week, which was mainly Donald Trump. And yeah, he's been the highlight for many, many weeks too.
NARCIS
And probably even more from now on, unfortunately.
KALPITA
Yeah, I'm so glad we're not talking about him this week, though. So happy.
NARCIS
No, no, no. We decided to, to choose some topics that are not necessarily, let's just say, related to the current geopolitics. And I will very quickly introduce the three subjects we're going to cover today. We will be talking about reading. It seems that there is a... well, they call it, it's a phenomenon. It's called "reading hate" among children; children who literally hate reading. And that's a thing, it seems, these days. So we're going to cover that as our first subject. Then we're going to go into electric cars. It seems that they are getting more expensive, and more and more as the years will pass towards 2030, until when, well, literally they will be obligatory. So then it doesn't matter anymore. So then the third subject we're going to cover today is about petty theft or petty crimes, better said, and the fact that the government has decided to take a much tougher stance on it. And there are some changes from 1st of February that might affect, actually, some of you and might make you want to go and take a look at your bike and see, "well, is this actually mine?"
KALPITA
Yeah. Also, where you buy it from, is also important.
NARCIS
Exactly. But before we jump into it, Kalpita, how was your week?
KALPITA
Week has been very, very interesting. I was invited to dinner yesterday at a very good friend's of mine, and she has three young kids and the middle one is about, I think, somewhere between six- and nine-years-old, and as a special treat to me, because I am a very lovely guest to them and they love me - haha. One of the kids read a story for me from his very own book. So, that was very interesting. I have never been read a story to... by a little kid, and that was very fascinating for me. And that happened because one of his friend's mum posted on Instagram where her child was reading loudly at a library, and he sort of got into this competition of you know, "oh, I can read better than him." And then he decided to sit down and read the story. Of course, everybody had to drop everything and listen to his story because now he was reading a book. But that's very interesting now that we also have this "reading hate" or dislike from children from a young age, which I think is very, very concerning. And to most extent, I think it's the attention deficit that kids have, especially with screen time, and a lot of trouble with parents also not introducing reading at that young age to the children as well. Do you have any experience with kids not reading?
NARCIS
I mean it's a bit early for me to say. My daughter is three years and a half. So right now we are just fighting with... well, "fighting." We have to deal with the fact that we have multiple languages in house, so we have to jump between books. I mean if you look at our little library, you can see books in Romanian, Polish, English, Danish, and we definitely read. But I think this... this about hateful reading. I think it's more for children who can read by themselves, right? This... this whole trend is because they made like a statistic on, on reading and they noticed that only 14% of fourth graders in Denmark love reading or like to read. And it's even worse because if you compare it to a previous statistic from five years ago, it was 20%. So that's a quite a steep decrease. It wasn't very high to begin with; one in five children likes to read, but now it's even worse. And imagine if it gets to under 10% in the next period, it'll be literally one in ten children who actually likes to read. It will become a rarity. It will become, like, something very special if you see a child reading... Imagine, it might be at some point that you read a book in the class, and then the other children will be, like, mobbing you because of it. Because it will not be cool anymore if you're the only one in the whole class who reads.
KALPITA
Yeah, but that's the thing, right? Back in the day, and how I developed my reading habit was, when we read aloud in class. No matter what the lesson was, our teachers made us read aloud. But at the same time, like when you say fourth graders, I remember when I was in fourth grade, we had dedicated half an hour, 40 minutes, once a week where we could take a book from the library. Even if it was a picture book, it didn't matter. As long as you picked a book, and you sat down, and you went through the book. The teacher wasn't looking at you, if you're reading the book or if you're reading word to word; as long as you skimmed the book, you... you had the book in your hand, and you sort of developed this association with books. But at the same time, I think it's also important that the world of reading is opened up for children and not restricted to books. Also because when you're forced to do something, especially with the kind of accessibility we have in Denmark, it's important that children, or anybody for that matter, who wants to develop a reading habit should just read. It doesn't need to be a book. It doesn't need to be a specific news article or anything. Just read. You can start with reading signs. You can start with reading your food packages just to see where it's from, or whatever else you're interested in that food, and develop sort of a liking from there towards reading. I think it's essential because I remember there was an... there was an article a couple of, and also research, a couple of years ago where children couldn't write, like, hold a pencil and write with their hands or do simple mathematics. And this seems to be a growing problem in and around the west, especially developed countries where basic things are becoming a dislike and... and kids are becoming incapable. I think it's ridiculous that kids can't write with a... with a pen and paper.
NARCIS
I mean, what should we tell parents at home? What can international parents look... take as lessons at home? Because my only thing, the only thing I can imagine, like, from what you said in the beginning, is that if we read as parents... we as parents read in the presence of children. So in the evening, after you have made dinner, after you have eaten, in that, let's just say one magical, one hour between seven and eight in the evening, right? If you as a parent, instead of looking at TV or at your... at your phone, if you pick up a book and you read, I think the children might be more encouraged to read as well. Or even when they're younger, just reading often with them out loud, as you said. I think that might make them more interested to read. I think that's my only direct advice I can say from my side. But what would you advise parents to do in this case?
KALPITA
I would strongly advise having a no phone hour where you yourself as a parent pick up something physically that you can read. And it could be your kids' storybooks as well. Read aloud to your kid or just absolutely anything. Just, you know, you get free flyers, and free advertisements, and free supplements in your postbox from the municipality and all of that. Read those. Put your child together with the family and try and read that aloud. And if you're not a Danish-speaking person and you read English or whatever language you read in, it doesn't matter what the language is as long as that liking and that... and that, you know, children imitate what parents do. And I did the same as well. My mum reads, my mother-in-law reads, everybody in my family reads. We had this book exchange as well. One of my mum's brothers used to come over. He'll read a book while he was staying with us for a day or two. He'll leave the book behind and take another book with him. But also if... if it's hard for parents and kids to sit together and read, I would also suggest try the libraries because libraries have storytelling sessions as well. There are many independent bookstores that also do storytelling for children. Maybe encourage those. Take your kids and, you know, it could be like a playtime as well with other friends in the school and, you know, then it becomes like a group activity. Also, with my friend's kid, I realised that a little bit of competition is also nice, you know, because he wanted to show off that, "oh, he reads very slow, I can read better." And that encouraged him to actually immediately open his book and read to me. But the fact is also that my friend reads. So you know, the kids also feel like, "okay, I also have a book because my mum has a book." Or you know, that imitation is also important. So I would encourage going to libraries and checking out what's there for the kids or independent bookstores in and around your municipality. No phone once a week, at least, for an hour. That would be really good. Also maybe encourage kids to do something with their hands, so they're not dependent on things that are only screen time or that's, you know, really fast, high-paced.
NARCIS
And I mean, as internationals, as international parents... I mean, if you're not used to reading, fair enough. It might be hard to, let's just say, road to... or mountain to climb. Think about this: most of internationals are seeking more connections than they have, right?
KALPITA
Yeah.
NARCIS
And especially with Danes as well. What better way to do two things at the same time? Getting used to read and getting more connections. Join a book club. Go to your local library, bibliotec, and ask for any local book clubs they have. They have them in Danish, they have them in English. There's... there's hundreds of book clubs, like, sprouting about all around the country.
KALPITA
Yes.
NARCIS
So what better way? You get to read, you show your children the love to read, and you make new connections. It's like... like the perfect trifecta, right?
KALPITA
Absolutely. I mean I'm part of three book clubs.
NARCIS
Three. Wow!
KALPITA
That's one of the things I did when I first came to Denmark some eight, ten years ago, is that I looked for a book club. And it is a great way of connecting and having some social contact. Especially if you're... if you're a single parent, or if you're in Denmark and you don't know anything as to looking for a job or in between whatever it is. I would also suggest that maybe online book clubs, if you don't find anything in Denmark or something that you don't relate to. Maybe you have a different language other than English and Danish and you want to... you want to have some kind of connection. That's also a great idea to do. There is a TikTok-er, he's English though, and he makes videos on how to teach your kid to say words but also encourage reading habits. And I mention this specifically because I know that there are many, many children who suffer with... not suffer, but they have either dyslexia, or they're slow learners, or whatever. Or they have ADHD or anything like that. My husband's dyslexic as well, but he does try to sort of get the reading into his... not daily, but at least once a month, he's for sure reading something or the other. But that TikTok-er, he has some really good tricks and ways of making kids read and build their patience in... in identifying words and how to pronounce words. It's in English though, but maybe that's a starter, and you can develop that in your own language.
NARCIS
But enough about reading. We passed the time for... for discussion on that and I think we covered it quite well. Let's move on to electric cars. Kalpita, are you planning to buy an electric car?
KALPITA
Oh no, I'm not a car person, to be honest. I'm very, very public transport dependent. I love public transport. In fact, if electric cars are becoming expensive, I say make public transport free!
NARCIS
Make public transport free. I mean, not the craziest idea. There are cities in Europe who already made step to make public transport free. Fair enough. And I know you live in the city, as you live in Copenhagen. So, for you, public transport is quite a thing. But I live somewhere else. I live in a... yeah, near a large city, like Aalborg, but I still live near, like, in the suburbs. In the suburbs, you'll never have perfect public transport. We're talking about the bus every hour, and it takes one hour with the bus to reach the city. So a car is still very much needed in here. There's no question about it. We, ourselves, have a plugin... electric, like, plugin, which is like half-electric, half also using diesel. I think, not diesel... Gas, maybe? Yeah, one of them. I'm not a big car guy either, let's just say. But what... what's happening is that electric cars are becoming more expensive. Actually, in fact, every year, starting this year, already from this year, electric cars will become 8% more expensive only because of the gradual phase-in of the registration tax. Many people don't know, but for quite a few years now, electric cars didn't have registration tax. So that made them a lot cheaper than conventional fossil fuel car, right? It made them cheaper and it made... it got us to the situation where every second car bought in Denmark is electric, actually. And they expect in 2025 that percentage, that 70% of all new cars bought, will be electric. So we're definitely going towards a place where most people have electric cars, because why? Well, electricity is cheaper than diesel and gas, right? So that's one. It's cheaper to leave your car overnight to, you know, to charge at home than to bother... There's no more this fear that the car will run out of electricity because the range now is much higher on the new cars. It's even up to 400, 500km and even even without that, they are now building so many charging points that almost every, how to say, every parking lot literally has a charging station somewhere. And maybe some people don't know about it, but actually parking fees are much lower for electric cars than a normal car. "Normal..." Conventional fossil fuel. So that's... there's a lot of these things, right, that are out there in terms of electric cars. But I think the most important fact that we need to keep, to remember ourselves, is that from 2030 you will not be allowed to buy cars which are not electric. So, you'll have to buy electric from 2030.
KALPITA
Yeah, I think that's a bit of a shame because... like I said, I'm not a big car person, but the fun of having a car which is on diesel or petrol is just a whole different level. And I know most car fanatics will agree with me, but at the same time, I have a question of... I'm wondering, how does this 8% benefit the economy or the government in any... what does this 8% go to?
FIONN
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NARCIS
No, it's basically because... Think about it. The government was having quite an important income out of tax registration of cars; car trust registration. But because now one in two cars is electric means that the government is losing a lot of money compared to what they predicted they will get in. So now they, slowly, slowly... Because if all cars will be electric, right? Because we are here, we're only talking about new cars; cars that are acquired now. We're not saying that in 2030, people who have fossil fuel cars will have to stop using them. Probably they will have to stop using them in certain parts of the country anyway... But what I'm talking about acquiring a new car, right? So, if the registration tax, you pay it once, you pay it when you buy the car. So if... if all cars will be electric, and the registration tax is no longer there, then the government is losing an important source of income. So, of course, they had to bring it back. But right now there's a whole discussion between them, and there's a strong lobby coming from the automobile industry. Also from dansk industry. They are trying to convince the government to open the discussion on car registration tax and actually replace car registration tax with a road usage tax. So to not matter if you buy a car or if you own a car, but if you actually use a car. They think that, this way, people will be determined to use less their cars or maybe only use it when they really need it instead of using it all the time. So... But the whole idea is to find a way to implement a real-time road usage system, which we are talking about quite of an extensive IT system. And if we're looking at the whole valuation of... of tax for properties, then I'm afraid about any sort of large IT systems and how well they will do in the future, you know?
KALPITA
Yeah, I mean if you, if you fancy being monitored every time, wherever you are, that's... that's how it'll probably look like. But then that brings me back again to... to being a public transport supporter, so to speak. If I am paying so much, and if the government is already... or if someone's lobbying to... I'm reading the news, it says "common road tax for everyone." And, and as you mentioned, that if someone actually uses the car, then they get taxed on it, then why not better the accessibility of public transport? Because there is nothing more sustainable than that or biking. But then like you said, there are many, many people who, who stay in the outskirts or in the countryside where accessibility is not that easy.
NARCIS
But the problem is the cost of it. You have to understand that having a bus running every 20 minutes in my village will be almost all the time 80% empty. It's not feasible. It's not feasible for public finances, it's not feasible for environment either because it will still be a bus running on things. Of course it can be an electric bus running, which is fine, but then it's electricity that we have to pay from our public money. So I'm all fine about more buses, but it... it's still not going to be very efficient, to be honest. No matter what. It's difficult to replace the car with public transport in the outskirts. That's just how it is. So we just have to accept the reality that the future is a blending of the two. Maybe, yes, the car should get out of the big cities. Fair enough. Maybe at the entrance of the large city there's a huge parking lot. you just park your car, then you take the transport to anywhere you want to go. Yeah, fine, that will make the cities more breathable. That will make the cities better. But in the outskirts, nobody will ever be able to find... I don't know... Unless you find a way that these buses are so efficient and electricity is so cheap, then it doesn't matter. Then yes, run it every 20 minutes, empty, one person in it, no problem. It doesn't mean anything because it's simply that cheap to run it. But when will electricity become that cheap? Is that even something that we are aiming for? Because if all the cars will be on electricity in the future, that means the demand on electricity will be higher. Correct? So if the demand of electricity be higher, then that means the price of electricity will be higher as well. Unless we find more and more sources of electricity out there.
KALPITA
Exactly. So it's... it is not all that sustainable either. But then it's also a catch-22, you know? So, we leave that to the government.
NARCIS
Exactly.
KALPITA
But speaking of electric cars.
NARCIS
Yeah.
KALPITA
We have a good segue to the next topic that we're discussing, is petty thieves and petty crimes. Yeah.
NARCIS
Petty crimes. Such a funny name. "Misdemeanours," if you call it in English. Right?
KALPITA
Yeah.
NARCIS
Have you ever been exposed to petty crime?
KALPITA
Not personally, no. But I mean, yes and no, really. I worked with a e-bike company in Copenhagen. Very, very popular. Very, very cool. Extremely controversial as well. But we did work closely with the police at the end of the whole saga of stealing e-bikes. It is a nuisance, to be honest. And I don't... I don't think e-bikes and stealing e-bikes or batteries to e-bikes, whether it's a cargo bike or your, whatever, city bike or your off-roading, if you're using electric off-roads bikes. I don't... I do not believe that they are petty crimes because that's a huge market as well. But apart from stealing batteries and just completely picking up a whole e-bike in itself, and then selling that on the market is also a very, very big business. Millions and millions involved in that, actually. But I also live near a Netto, which has petty thieves coming in and out and stealing all kinds of things. You imagine, and they have stolen it. I've seen people walk out from... from the Netto with things under their jackets, filled in their pockets, and they, just as soon as they step out, they are off! You know? By the time you even tell the person behind the till saying, "hey, that person just," you know, "I saw him steal, like, a whole six pack," or something. And by the time you go out to even see them, they're not there. So my question is, one thing is to find them, but how are we going to find them to fine them?
NARCIS
To find them to fine them. It's...
KALPITA
Yeah, because if, if the thief is... If you can't find the thief, I know for a fact that especially e-bikes and batteries that are stolen on e-bikes, you will never find that person. You don't know who this person has just, out of the blue, when you've just popped into a shop to get whatever, has just taken your bike or taken your battery, and you're just left with either no bike or just a bike without a battery. And how do you find this person?
NARCIS
What's important here to note is, I lived in Denmark for 15 years. I came in Denmark in 2009. I came into a country, which did not know what petty crimes were. The stores in here had no cameras. Many stores had no people. Literally, you just put the money into a box and you get out with what you need from that store. That was the level of trust back in 2009. You have to understand that Denmark has gradually gotten used to the idea that it's changing as a society and the fact that now you have cameras in stores. Of course, we are not at the level where you need to hire security at the entrance. I'm not sure, maybe some parts in Denmark already went to that level of, let's just say, protection and security that you see in, for example, Eastern Europe, or actually France, Germany. But in Denmark, it's always been the case that you don't have to bother with such small things. Problem is, lately, shoplifting has become a bit too much. The... many stores are, are kind of... because many times those were being... they looked at the situation and thought, "okay, people steal for three reasons. One, because they are very poor, and they need to eat." Fair enough. And many times stores will close their eyes to those people because they need, they knew that, okay, it's going towards saving someone's life. Fair enough. But... and then, the second reason why people were stealing in the past was because of fun; for the exhilarating thought of stealing something, for the rush and adrenaline that you get. There are people who literally want to get a kick out of it. And they just do it for that reason. But now, unfortunately, there's a third category that emerging, and that's why now the government has decided to step in with a new law, is because now we have people stealing as a business. They're literally going to stores, they steal stuff, and they resell them on social media. It's crime as a business. It's a new thing. You can hire people to do all sorts of things, but you can also just take other people's products and resell them. It's literally a business. So that's why the government came with the first attempt at stopping these petty crimes. But to be honest, I'm not sure about the effect. I think, for example, on shoplifting, right, they raised fines from 500 to 1000 kroner and it always, the fine has to be higher than the product that you stole. And then if you steal repeatedly, then you have, that amount will just multiply itself. Okay, fair enough. I guess it will stop some people who steal because they're hungry. But you'll not stop the people who are reselling because this is too little. It's just a business loss, you can say. You put it under the category "business loss," and you move on. But I think the biggest impact, and I think many people listening to this should pay attention. We mentioned it at the beginning of the podcast is that bicycles from now on, from 1st of February, the police will be allowed to make random checks without a reason. They don't need a reason why they stop you; they just stop you. And they will check your bike ID, and if your bike ID is reported stolen, you will be going under burglary and bike theft. And that's a bit more serious accusation than shoplifting, actually.
KALPITA
Yeah, actually as far as my knowledge goes, the police have been doing that already because when I worked with the e-biking company, the police had started looking at the number. So I... I think it's applicable to most e-bikes especially, and probably your other non-e-bikes as well, that the frame of your bicycle has a number on it, and you just need to find that number. And your battery will also have a number on it. So if you get a legit bike, but maybe your battery is stolen, you never know. And police... I think I was working about three to two years ago, so I know the police have been doing this for at least two years that they're randomly checking on bicycles, and they were specifically checking back then for the brand that I worked for. But I'm sure they extended that to other e-bikes as well because it doesn't matter what e-bike it is these days. It's just a matter of getting the battery, especially because that, like you said, it is an organised business now.
NARCIS
It's... it's also not just e-bikes. We're talking about all bikes. Especially normal bikes. Because in the past, to stop you, they had to have... they need to suspect you. "We suspect that you might have stolen this bike." So, you had to be starting with the presumption of you might have stolen this bike. You look a bit funny. But now literally they can make, let's just say, "today, this morning, we're gonna take this street it, and every bike, a thousand bikes that will stop, will pass. All of them have to be checked." So that's... that's the difference. It's... now they're allowed to do more of it if they want to. And that's why many... Because, for example, you might have been more exposed because probably they were... Your company was often reporting those bikes being stolen. The company, the police was looking for those specific bikes. But now they will look at any random bike. So, what I suggest is that, go... is there like a place you can look if your bike has been stolen, actually?
KALPITA
No, there isn't. I was also going to ask if there was a way to call the police or have something online where you can check if so-and-so numbers on bikes or so-and-so registration of e-bike, for example, is... is a stolen bike. Like you know, there is no record per se. Going back to two years, I know police checked specifically our brands, and they stopped absolutely everybody. And they also stopped e-bikes who use similar battery sizes. So it wasn't just our bikes only, but it was other bikes who use similar batteries. Because once a battery is stolen, then you, then you can use it to any bike as well. But I would strongly suggest anybody who's buying bikes off of Facebook Marketplace or something like that, you have to have to, have to be sure of who you're buying from, if this person is a previous owner, if they have any legitimation for all of that. But also things like electronics; your Macs, your phones, all of them come with registration numbers as well. So, you have to be very careful. If you're buying anything that is especially expensive or has a higher value, then you have to be careful with who you're buying from, where you're buying from as well. Even places like Vinted and all of that, where you get used products you have to be very, very careful with them. Because you never know. This thing can also extend to other products. So it's not necessarily just this. And this could also be... I know for a fact that this is coming off the experience that our company had because we... we unfortunately played a huge, huge role in... it wasn't the company did anything, of course, but it was that our bikes were used for serious crime. And that's why our company became the forefront of all of this. And I know these rules are also coming off of that experience because it's not just the theft of a bike or a e-bike or similar products, but it's also, like you said, organised crime. But also it's used for furthering different serious crimes as well. So it's... it's not just a small thing. It's just like a spark for bigger and different things that are also getting involved in it. So it's fine if you forget a train ticket or a bus ticket, but do not buy a bike or a product off anywhere where you don't know it's legit.
NARCIS
Exactly. And with that, we finished the podcast for today. This has been our first episode. Thank you so much, Kalpita, for... for being here with me tonight.
KALPITA
It has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.
NARCIS
We are by the way recording on a Saturday evening. So that's why we're gonna, usually, probably gonna hear in the next episodes that it's in the evening that we're recording. You're listening to this on a probably Sunday afternoon, but I hope you'll enjoy our first episode, and you'll listen to the next episodes. We promise you we will be every week there with you.
KALPITA
Also, if you have any feedback, please do not hesitate to write back to us or share it on wherever you're listening the podcast at.
NARCIS
Super. Then thank you so much for tonight, and see you another week. It's not a guarantee that the same two hosts will be here, but I know for sure Kalpita will be will be with you next week, and I'll see you some other time.
KALPITA
Thank you.
KALPITA
Hey, this is Kalpita and Golda, cohosts of the Last Week in Denmark podcast. Did you know Last Week in Denmark offers sponsored content in the newsletter? Our reporters are producing original articles and content tailored for internationals in Denmark.
GOLDA
So if you have a business our readers should know about, let us write about it. Get in touch with us at reporter@lwid.dk. You can also reach out to us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Last Week In Denmark.