Greenland’s election winner ready for talks, apartment prices accelerate, Vingegaard hit by hail and more news from Denmark this Thursday.
Greenland election winner ‘open to talks with all parties’
Greenland’s centre-right Democrats, who won the territory’s legislative elections but must now form a ruling coalition, are ready to talk to all parties, their deputy leader said yesterday.
Following the polls, in which support also soared for the nationalist pro-independence Naleraq party, the Democrats “are going to talk with every party,” their deputy head, Anna Wangenheim, told news agency AFP.
“We don’t know who we are going to collaborate with, but we are open to discuss and debate” future policies.
The talks will be held in the “coming days”, she said.
The party, which describes itself as “social liberal” and is headed by 33-year-old Jens-Frederik Nielsen, won 29.9 percent of votes and 10 mandates in the 31-seat parliament.
“I was very surprised. We had hoped for maybe two or three more mandates, but now we have 10 mandates,” Wangenheim said.
READ ALSO: What does Greenland election result mean for Denmark?
Apartment prices skyrocket in Copenhagen region
Denmark’s housing market remains strong and apartment prices have seen a particularly significant rise over the past year, according to a new report from real estate site Boligsiden.
Apartment prices have jumped 8.7 percent nationally while the Greater Copenhagen region has seen prices rise by more than 11 percent over the same period.
Prices in the city of Copenhagen have seen especially sharp growth, according to Sydbank, which has analysed the figures from Boligsiden.
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“You could probably talk about whether house prices are beginning to flirt with the speed limit at this point,” Søren Kristensen, chief economist at Sydbank, told news wire Ritzau.
“Prices are certainly rising a bit faster currently than what can be justified by wage increases and falling interest rates,” he added.
Sale prices for detached and terraced houses have meanwhile risen more than 5 percent nationwide over the past year.
However, Sydbank notes that house prices dipped slightly in February, falling 0.5 percent when adjusted for seasonal variations.
‘Race to the Sun’ hit by hail as Vingegaard bemoans whether
Team UAE’s Joao Almeida won stage four of the Paris-Nice cycle race on Wednesday after Danish two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard attacked first on a tough final climb to take the overall lead, AFP reports.
The final kilometre was reminiscent of the Visma leader’s Tour de France clashes with Tadej Pogacar, and as so often when vying with Almeida’s teammate, Vingegaard simply slowed off in the finale to come second by 1sec.
Vingegaard, the winner of February’s Tour of the Algarve, was unhappy with the winter weather however.
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“Nobody enjoyed that stage, it should have been stopped. We were all shivering,” said the yellow jersey who learned his trade riding into coastal winds in remote parts of Jutland.
The Danish cycling icon now leads Paris-Nice from overnight leader Matteo Jorgenson of the USA by 5sec.
SAS to resume flights from Copenhagen and Stockholm to Lebanese capital Beirut
Flights with Scandinavian carrier SAS to Lebanon’s capital Beirut are to resume from June this year, the company has confirmed.
The decision was announced in a SAS press statement in which the airline cited “improving conditions” in the region as enabling it to resume services.
Other European airlines have already announced a similar decision, SAS noted.
“We know that many of our customers have been looking forward to the return of our Beirut flights,” SAS network deputy director Henrik Winell said in the statement.