Who Actually Runs This City?

Listen to our co-hosts and the Mayor of Aalborg, Lasse Frimand Jensen. 

Focus of this conversation is: Understanding the role of the local council and the mayor in Danish municipalities, and how residents, including internationals, can engage with and influence their local democracy.

The podcast is made by AMIS (an NGO that has over 30 years of history of making projects aimed at developing better opportunities and inclusion in Denmark and Europe), Nyt Europa (an NGO that works for a sustainable and democratic EU) and Last Week in Denmark (a weekly newsletter about Danish latest news with over 100 000 monthly readers, available in 8 languages). 

Transcript

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Speaker 1  0:00  
Welcome to the second episode of vote home season two, which is a limited five episode podcast that empowers internationals living in Denmark to take part in local regional elections on November 18, 2025 hosted by me Nargis, George matake and Derek Hartman. We will be talking today about the local council you.

Speaker 2  0:20  
You'll

Speaker 1  0:26  
be surprised that the local council means a lot more than you believe in your life. Almost everything that you do in your day to day, life is being decided or governed by the local council. And to bring light to that question we have today,

Speaker 3  0:39  
we are very excited to welcome lesaman Jensen, the young mayor of Albor at the first mandate. He ran the first political campaign in English, way back in 2013 showing an interest in getting internationals to belong. And we think he's the perfect person to talk to today to find out more about what is a local council. Welcome.

Speaker 1  0:59  
La same. Thank you so much. Derek and Nazis. Looking forward to this conversation?

Speaker 3  1:04  
Yes, I hope that our introduction Did you justice, but for anybody who maybe wants a little more, can you tell us a bit more about background and how you

Speaker 4  1:12  
introduce yourself? Yeah, I see myself as a local Patriot with a global mindset. I'm very much local man who's been born and raised here, but I've also had the privilege of traveling the world, living abroad in Africa for some time, working there. So I know how it is to be an expat trying to settle into a life with your partner, my wife at that time, and how to manage to get a good life there.

Unknown Speaker  1:36  
Well, I know that's gonna sound very familiar,

Speaker 4  1:39  
yeah. And I worked with international citizens for many years being a project manager of international housing of Denmark. So I'm very excited about this conversation with Henning.

Speaker 1  1:50  
So let's jump into the first segment now. The first segment is going to be what is a local council and who's in it, as you probably know, hopefully, Denmark has 98 municipalities, and each of them has a local council that governs them. Every four years, they elect a new let's just say set of leaders. Aalborg itself has 31 members, but there are others who can have even 41 like Copenhagen, for example, or even 12, like the smaller municipalities around besides local councilmens, we also have two other positions, the mayor, we have one right here, and the aldermen. Those are the three positions you can find in the local council. So lase, what is the mayor? What is the alderman and what is the local councilor? What is the difference between them? Because as far as I know, we only vote for the local councilors. Yeah.

Speaker 4  2:39  
So I think you said it very precisely in the introduction Nasi, is that the local council shapes everyday life in your city. And being an international you are very much an equal citizen, like somebody like me who's born and raised and lived most of his life here. So it's important that the local council makes sure that that the highest decision making in the municipality and set the direction for the for the municipality also follow the wishes and the demands of the local population. So I like the fact that the local council law is not a full time politician like I was for for 10 years. I wasn't a full time politician. I had my my work, my everyday work, next to my political work, but now, as a mayor, I'm a full time politician, and the other elder men are and the reason for that is that you, as a mayor, you the political leader of the municipality. I chair both the city council meetings and also the finance committee meetings and try to ensure that that the council's decisions are carried out in practice, also in the municipality.

Speaker 1  3:45  
Okay, but what does it what's the difference between a mayor and an alderman? What does an alderman do?

Speaker 4  3:50  
So the alderman is responsible for each of the different sectors of the municipality. One is schools and childcare, one is elderly care and health services. Other one is urban planning and housing. And then there are environment and waste management. And then we have the job and welfare, which is creating jobs and having welfare, then my own economy and business. So we have in total, seven departments of the municipality, and an alderman is responsible political leader of each of these departments.

Speaker 1  4:27  
Would you say that all municipalities have this structure of seven aldermen, or is it up to every municipality to decide how they want to have it?

Speaker 4  4:35  
The last one, it's up to the each municipality to decide whether they would like an alderman or just a chairman of each department. So it's very different from municipality to municipality.

Speaker 1  4:47  
I know you're not you're not connected to Copenhagen, but do you know why Copenhagen has seven mayors, not one, so

Speaker 4  4:55  
there is a Lord Mayor, yeah, which is the mayor and the other one? Or. So named mayor, but in practice, it's like an alderman, okay, it's the naming and the tradition and and we also we call the city council, other call municipality boards. So the naming, the tradition, the history, is often why things are called different things in Denmark,

Speaker 1  5:18  
okay, yeah. So would you say that the local councilman? You say that a local Councilman needs to have a job next to it to be able to, obviously provide for himself. So how much work does a local councilor? Have you been one for 10 years? What does it mean everyday life of a local councilman?

Speaker 4  5:34  
So there will be around every second week a city council meeting, which is the like the final decision meeting, where the different things that has been discussed in the different councils connected to the departments will come in, and all 31 can have a say so many of the decisions that goes to these meetings. So that's an important meeting, and it depends on how active you are, how many positions you have in roles, I would have two departments councils I would sit in. So I would probably have two meetings per week connected with my political work. Two days out of my working day would go with politics approximately, before I became mayor, two out of five. Two out of five. Yeah, yeah, okay. And I was also quite busy different boards next to it, also the port of Albor, our port. I was chairman of that. So it depends on how many roles you have, at least one, one meeting a week.

Speaker 1  6:35  
How can one get anything to pass through? Because, as we said, yes, the local council governs your daily life in Denmark. So how can a local Councilman get an idea through? Let's say they want, I don't know, open a new school. What should they do? I'm one single local councilman.

Speaker 4  6:53  
So they can ask to get a point on the agenda for that. Okay, you can go directly to the city council and start there. Let's say, if you want to, like you said, a school and if you're sitting in the council connected to the school department, you can raise that point on the agenda. But if you don't sit in, we have a gentleman agreement that you can raise the point in the city council. But the normal way would be to start in department council with a suggestion, and you as a citizen, you don't need to have a local council member. You can also, there is a chance for all citizens to ask questions and raise points to the municipality for each city council meeting,

Speaker 1  7:33  
okay, but I believe that this budget meeting that's every year, right? That's very important, because, okay, I want a new school, but there needs to be money for it. So I guess there's only so much money to be distributed. So how do I get the others to join me in? There must be some sort of negotiations. Politics. Is it? Is it very political, or it's not so political? I mean, because a lot of people are saying, Oh, it's not very political, just amateur people that are playing politics, or some other people are saying, Oh, it's very, very political. What is the truth? What's what's hidden behind there is there really a lot of politics in local politics,

Speaker 4  8:04  
I think, because it is, like you said in the beginning, everyday life, I think everybody is very equal, because who knows the better of the everyday life than one person living in the city and in the municipality? So you don't need to be an expert. You You can be a retired fireman and know exactly what the truth is about your local neighborhood, compared to a researcher who done a PhD or whatever that is, I think is the good thing about local politics is that it's so down to earth. It is really the everyday life that you can make changes for that you you yourself is an expert in that.

Speaker 1  8:45  
Okay, so politics are not so important. We're not talking about ideologies. We're not talking about real politic right here, right

Speaker 4  8:51  
that also comes into play. But I would say, okay, that also is obviously half of maybe the decisions that are done is obviously also connected with your your mindset, your belief, your values, your ideas, your visions and stuff like that. But it's also very much down to how you want to make a change in your your local neighborhood.

Speaker 1  9:14  
How can you get the others? Because I know that in Denmark is very hard for a political party to have a majority from voting alone, so that means they have to negotiate with the other parties. How can, let's just say, a city councilman from any party be able to raise the majority, for example, to make that school happen? How would you go about it?

Speaker 4  9:34  
So if I was a single politician represented only one party, try to discuss it with my coalition. So normally you would be part of a coalition with other parties, and I would start raising this question, obviously within my own party and in the with the members of my party, and discuss it there. Then go to the coalition group this. Because it does see if they support it. If not, maybe go to the other coalition group and see if they support it, and then have enough support of the city council that you can have 16 members out of 31 supporting it, and then you have the majority, and then you can pass it through

Speaker 3  10:15  
when it comes to these local decisions. Obviously, I really appreciate the fact that there is a lot of public influence, but when it comes to how the local council is made up, and of course, we're talking about parties, do some of those decisions, or do some of those coalitions, mirror what we see at the national level? Because I know, as an international I am pretty aware of how each National Party sort of falls around the issues that are most important to me. But does that seem to mirror things at the local council level, or is there more that we should be looking

Speaker 4  10:45  
at? I think there's a lot more to look at from that of obviously the your perception of other human beings. I'm a Social Democrat. I see a potential in everybody, no matter who they are, what their background is, social economy, status and so on, where others maybe are more skeptical, and that's also why I see internationals as a very important part of our municipality. I want to be we want to have the most welcoming and best place to live in Denmark for internationals, because they are a very important part of our future, making sure that we have the right mindset and the right hearts of the city, and I see a lot of international loving our city, just as equal as a local who's live here the whole life. So that's that's the mindset and the value and idea I have from political aspect. But then going into to make a change in your local neighborhood is not very ideology that decide whether you will like the school or not. Maybe if there's ideology behind if it should be a public or private school, that could be an ideology question, but not the fact whether it should be there or not. And that's can sometimes be more like a question of trust for the local politician, whether they would fight your case and make sure that the things that they promise they will deliver.

Speaker 3  12:03  
Now, obviously, we've talked a lot about how residents can sort of influence and have some connection. What would you advise somebody who is voting, maybe for the first time or new to the experience in the process, to be learning about whether it's about their existing local council or leading up to those decisions that they're going to make, hopefully this November.

Speaker 4  12:26  
So I would start out by participating in in a meeting, in a public meeting, maybe a debate. I also try to organize debates in English so everybody can participate there. And sometimes we also have translators if you don't speak English, so you can get your own mother tongue translated, and then maybe contact local politicians directly, because it is very much also a question of who the person is. How are there ways of working within local council and use social media to share your ideas and concerns, and maybe, if you find an organization, an NGO, whatever, join this and be part of the board or advisory groups, and then take initiative to two ideas that you have. As an example, I've had many internationals contacting me to strengthen our international school that we have in skipa Climate school, and it looks like now it's going to be a reality, that we will strengthen it and open it up more for more children to join this, because we have a waiting list of 220 children and youth that want to join this but cannot because there's not enough room for it. That's a concrete example of how internationals have affected the future of Alba. It

Speaker 3  13:39  
sounds like there's a lot of accountability, you know, sort of both ways. Obviously there's accountability on the international community to get involved, and, you know, to be in contact, attend meetings, and, of course, the most important part to vote themselves. Thank you for the example with the schools. How would you describe the accountability? The other way, it seems like in that example you provided you know, you are being pretty accountable to your constituents. What do you think that looks like for others from local councils around Denmark?

Speaker 4  14:06  
So we have a very trust based community around our municipality. We tend not to lock our doors. We tend to leave the baby wagon outside our house if the baby is sleeping. So there's a lot of trust there. And I see many of my international friends that surprised by this, this level of trust. And I really hope that you will capture this and embrace it and be part of it. And I see the majority doing that. You have also your history and traditions with you, and maybe letting go of the mistrust is something that I will love more internationals to do. It's not a big issue, but the more trust we have among each other, the better community we will have. And I see also that I'm fighting to make. Make more room for internationals having local jobs. Maybe you're having more jobs within the public sector as well, where Danish language is not a requirement, but other aspects of your competences could be used and getting on board on that, and utilizing whenever there is a job position available that we try to set up that there also be some quality behind the execution. I see that growing hand in hand. The more we open up as Danes, the more the international community delivers back. And that just increases the whole trust between locals and internationals.

Speaker 1  15:37  
Is it possible to give a few more examples of what the local council decides on, because I feel like our audience should get, like, a more overview of, okay, there's schools, yeah, fine. There is jobs that they can decide about. What else do they decide about?

Speaker 4  15:51  
So elderly care is very big, very big part of our budget as well. School is the most and childcare the biggest budget. But elderly care is also very big, because we want to take care of the people who have built up our welfare system, and when they need welfare, they should have welfare, but that's the whole thinking behind it. But also public transportation, like busses and roads, very big thing where sometimes can be one of the aspects of the municipality that the locals are most critical about urban planning, how I want our local communities to be planned, in my opinion, that it is very diverse, that we have high, expensive houses next to affordable housing, that we have a mix and diversity in that the environment and waste management very big, and also For the future as well, that we take care of climate, we handle our nature properly, that we also make sure that the climate challenges of maybe having our water rising and it doesn't affect the houses and the everyday life, and then also the local tax is something that is responsible of. So there's a lot of things that shapes everyday life of everybody in our eligibility.

Speaker 1  17:05  
So we're gonna go now to next segment. How can residents influence the local council? So it's obvious that one way to influence local council is to actually go out there and vote. You do have the right to vote, and if you follow the first episode of this podcast, you'll find out how exactly to do that. But besides voting glass save how else can we, the citizens influence you, the politician?

Speaker 4  17:29  
For me, the personal meeting is always what affects me the most, seeing a person eye to eye. So as I said, participate in public meetings. There's a lot of chances to meet city council members. All of our city council meetings are open for the public. You can come in and sit and observe. And also, if you come half an hour before we start, you can come in and have a chat with us and discuss things and raise questions. And as I said, we have this questioning hour that you can ask a question and come in, put your questions in a microphone, and each party will answer your question approximately an hour, half an hour before the city council meeting starts every second, Monday, four o'clock. You can also follow the city council meetings online, streaming it to make it more accessible. But in my opinion, the personal meeting is what had the biggest impact, both on the citizen but also on you as a politician.

Speaker 1  18:25  
Okay, I'm just curious. Whenever there is a big decision or, like, a big change in the municipality, is there like a public hearing or consultation, and then how are people invited to it? Is there like a do I get an invitation on my eBooks, saying, hey, we want to decide something about your neighborhood. Come we're

Speaker 4  18:44  
going to decide exactly what you just said, okay, yeah, exactly what you just said there, but there will be hearings. It depends on how closely affected you are by the decision. So if it's a decision that goes for everybody, almost in the municipality, you won't get it in your E box, the, you know, the digital inbox you have. But you, you will get it if it's, if it's your street, there's things happening, you will get a hearing, and you will get it in your ear box. And if it's a public hearing meeting, you will be invited for that as well. But you, you always, always welcome to have your say in in a comment or the hearing. Can do that without living there. And we see that a lot, if a citizen is angry or something in their local neighborhood, but they can see in another neighborhood the changes they wanted to have there in their local neighborhood is done in the other neighborhood, they would make a hearing for the other neighborhood's local plan. So I see very active citizens in our municipality, especially when it is really closely to your everyday life. I'm

Speaker 1  19:45  
just curious, like, okay, let's say I'm going to this public hearing. They want to do something on my street. I'm not sure what, and I'm not okay with it. I want to stop it, but I'm one person. Can one person really derail? Let's just say improvements on my street.

Speaker 4  19:58  
Yeah. Because in your your mail normally to the to the department that responsible for it, they would give you an answer. So they will say, fully accomplished, almost accomplished are not accomplished. So they they would answer you back whether they would follow the idea or critics you have over the decision being done, and that goes we have, normally two hearings before it's finalized, and they would answer you always that's a rule, a law that you have to get an answer.

Speaker 1  20:35  
And last question in this segment, I'm just curious. Okay, one way is to obviously vote and participate and directly contact the city councilman. But is there a way to be more involved or have some sort of decision making power without being a politician? Is there, like, some mid level between city council and normal citizen attending? Are there, like some sort of boards committees?

Speaker 4  20:57  
Oh, I would say there's that there's a high level of equality in the democratic system in Denmark there. But you maybe, if you get involved in a local board, we call it samhol. So for example, where you, you live Nazi in helst, there's a samhol in Hells, yeah. And they, they have a role when it's a local decision being done in Hells, and they have the chance of making a hearing, so a hearing answer. So they would, they would be invited in, where you as a citizen, also be invited if you live on the street, but not necessarily if you don't live on the street. So that's a way of maybe having access to more involvement, I would say. But you're not, you're not more worth than somebody who's not part of assembl You're an equal citizen like everybody else, but you have, you'll maybe have more room to be more active. I would say,

Speaker 1  21:52  
Okay, but what about there's this role? I'm not sure how to translate them in English, maybe councils that are next to the City Council, where normal citizens can be appointed,

Speaker 4  22:02  
right? That's the, what we call samhol, okay, that's the samrol. Okay, yeah, that's the samhol. What they have, compared to one like you, who's not part of that, is that they have a right to say today, invited in for everything that is regarding the local neighborhood where you as a citizen normally would be if you're directly involved in your own street, in your own school, in your own childcare, in your old, elderly house.

Speaker 3  22:29  
Now, if somebody wants to get involved in one of those boards or committees, what would be their first step? And maybe, if there isn't a board existing for an issue that's important to them, if they were to start one themselves, how would they go about that?

Speaker 4  22:41  
You can establish an organization. It takes an association, we call in Denmark, in for inning. It takes two to five minutes online, but then the you need to have a general assembly and the rules and laws of your organization in place and stuff like that. But it's very easy to establish your own NGO or an association, and they they can have a target towards affecting I met recently with animal rights in Alba. Fighting for animal rights could be amnesty. I met with the other day. So there's a lot of different NGOs, and you as a citizen, can create your own NGO. I'm going to meet with the cyclists association that are fighting for better biking lanes and stuff like that, security and safety of bikes. You can do that quite easily establishing your own or maybe go online and research if there is an organization fitting your purpose.

Speaker 3  23:37  
It sounds like there's definitely no excuse to be involved if you have something like that that's important to you exactly. And I think sometimes as internationals, we maybe don't know the correct pathways or how to do that. And of course, I think it also all starts with with voting, because some internationals may not even know that they're able to which, of course, we hopefully addressed for them pretty well in our first episode here. But once they are convinced, once they get to that point, maybe they're still not over the hump of why? What would you say offer to somebody who maybe is almost there but needs to be convinced of why it's important that they're participating in the democratic process here? A

Speaker 4  24:17  
lot of things, a lot of people get active when they can see changes are being done based on their wishes. So I think it's also a matter of of us, politician and the municipality in general, in communicating what changes we do for the better of the society during a vacation, I have planned posts on social media with the things we've done for the last two years I've been mayor, a lot of citizens were Whoa. I didn't know that. So So, so also we can be better at communicating the results of it. I think change is the most motivating thing for people to be active in that. But also trust that you trust the person making the decision. They are accountable, that they are not saying something before the election and not delivering after that. That is the thing I value the most in my work, that the thing I say in the election campaign is also what we're going to carry out after the election. That's one of my values, and that's not an ideology. It's more like a personal thing, where I know many people around politics that say a lot of things before election and forget all about it after the election,

Speaker 3  25:27  
and on every level that's that is, that is rather true. So, of course, and it's nice, sometimes I think you said something that really resonated, of yeah, sometimes we just have to be reminded of what's happening, because it's very easy to just sort of go along with the status quo. It seems like you often hear people say, Yes, things work very well here, but they don't quite know why. And it's great to be able to sort of connect those dots for people that yes, the local council is really behind that, and we have a say in that every every four years here. I

Speaker 4  25:58  
think that the fact that you make this podcast and internationals tell each other about it. Getting more involved in the local community only makes the community stronger, because there's a we can see, for example, in a school class or in a workplace or in an association. The more diverse it is, the more creativity happens, and the more growth that's documented, well documented, and not only Denmark, but around the world, that diversity creates creativity, and creativity creates a better life and more growth, that that's why I believe the job you're doing in communicating this in a podcast or in a newspaper or in local media is making a difference.

Speaker 3  26:37  
Wow, we definitely appreciate that, and that's, of course, what we're trying to do here. And thank you for your part in that mission for us, of kind of motivating the international community to take these steps and get involved in and thank you for filling in some of these information gaps that can be preventing people from their inclusion in the democratic participation and process here.

Unknown Speaker  26:57  
So it's been a pleasure. Thank you. Derek analysis,

Speaker 1  27:02  
so today we have learned about the local council together with the mayor of Aalborg, Lasse Riemann Jensen, and next time we're going to be learning about the Regional Council, what is that even? Right? So that's next episode. Keep up with that and see you soon. Thank you, Lasse, thank you, Derek, thank you guys. Bye.