Denmark: New Citizens to start paying for translation services after 3 years

(Copenhagen) Danish Foreign Minister Ingr Støjberg writing an article in the media has stated she will make immigrants who have lived in Denmark for more than three years pay for translation services when visiting doctors or consulting authorities.  She was responding to the provision of free language services for migrants in Denmark - which strains the public purse and disincentives language-learning. She said:

 “In our naivety, we have willingly provided a lifelong publicly paid interpreter. And in doing so, we keep wondering why it is that people don’t learn the language.”

Her message was aimed at Danes, who she argues have been too accommodating to new arrivals in the country stating that the lack of expectation on new arrivals to learn the language had even caused parallel societies to form in some Danish cities. She pointed out that the prospect of parallel societies in Denmark  

“ as one of the consequences of decades of failed integration policies .Unless we dare to make demands on foreigners, we will fail to address the serious problem of parallel societies in Denmark, where people neither work, nor speak the language, nor share Danish values.”

This issue is also a bone of contention in the UK, where it was revealed that the Health service alone spends £100 million over the past 5 years on translation services.