Denmark's rotating presidency of the EU has been juggling a lot of difficult political balls: the climate negotiations ahead of the COP30 in Brazil, the "simplification" omnibuses that have run into political battles in the European Parliament, and much else. We travel to Copenhagen to talk to Denmark’s Minister for European Affairs, Marie Bjerre, about how the presidency is going, and how the small country is dealing with the big geopolitical headwinds blowing into Denmark.

Bjerre says that "there has been a change of mindset, because we used to be a little bit more critical of the EU with further integration, more EU legislation. But the attitude towards the EU [in Denmark] has really changed quite dramatically. And this has absolutely to do with the new geopolitical reality that we are faced with. We see war on our continent, war in Ukraine, a more aggressive Russia, and also new political winds blowing from the US. And in such a situation, Europe has to be much stronger. Europe has to be able to defend itself, and therefore Denmark also has to contribute to that."

Denmark is a committed supporter of Ukraine, and we ask Bjerre how the Danish EU presidency is dealing with the fact that the Hungarian government is blocking further moves to have Ukraine join the EU.

"There's absolutely the possibility of making progress, and we are actually progressing," Bjerre replies. "Yes, Hungary is blocking so we can't formally open the negotiation clusters. But we're working on the technical level. During our (EU) presidency, we have managed to frontload the technical work, meaning that when Hungary is not blocking any more, then we will be capable of opening the negotiation clusters and hopefully also be able to close them quite fast afterwards, because the Ukrainians are working on the reforms," she explains. Bjerre highlights an agreement that was reached during the Danish presidency on mobile phone roaming in the EU for Ukrainians. "A lot of us remember how expensive it was when we used our phone going to France from Denmark," she says. "But today it's cheap and from 1st of January it will be cheap for the Ukrainians as well. It sounds like a small agreement, but it goes to the fact that Ukrainians are getting closer to the EU."

Denmark is considered to be a pioneer in the renewable energy transition in Europe, especially on wind power. Bjerre hints that Denmark was disappointed at the climate target that the EU agreed ahead of the COP30 summit in Brazil. 

"From a purely Danish perspective, we would have liked this agreement to look a little bit different," Bjerre admits. "We are very ambitious on the climate agenda. We're not hiding that. We are not going to use fossil fuels in the future. And we believe that developing new green technologies is linked with competitiveness."

Bjerre also links competitiveness with the EU's "simplification agenda".

"Right now it's impossible for me as a politician to visit a Danish company without them saying that they are burdened with too many rules," she states. "Things are too bureaucratic. We are asking them for too many reporting requirements. The Draghi report from last year said it quite clearly: we are overregulating in the EU; it's too burdensome to do business in the EU. And therefore simplification is a key priority for our presidency. And luckily we already closed two agreements on this simplification. But the agreement on sustainability is of course also key for us to close."

Will the simplification of sustainability rules undermine climate goals, though? Is the watering down of reporting requirements not a problem? "I think we have to think about the green transition in a different way," Bjerre answers." We're not necessarily getting more green transition when we're reporting about it. It's also about innovation and letting companies thrive and innovate."

We turn to the thorny subject of migration, and the notion of "return hubs" for migrants outside EU borders, which has recently run into legal difficulties. Bjerre confirms that "return hubs" are indeed still an idea.

"Denmark has had a strict immigration policy for more than 25 years, and we are proud of that. For many years, I think we were not looked upon as a country for inspiration when it came to our immigration policy, but we are that today. Many countries realise that we need to have better control of migration and better control of sending irregular migrants back, and a part of that is building receiving centres or returning hubs. We realise that it’s difficult to do this as one single country, and that's why we're advocating that these hubs should be made together in [the] EU."

Programe prepared by Charlotte Prudhomme, Agnès Le Cossec, Perrine Desplats and Oihana Almandoz