COPENHAGEN: Thousands of people gathered in Copenhagen on Sunday to protest a bill put forward by the government to scrap a public holiday to help finance increased defence spending.
The demonstration was organised by the country’s biggest labour unions which oppose abolishing the Great Prayer Day, a Christian holiday that falls on the fourth Friday after Easter and dates back to 1686. Unions organising the protest estimated at least 50,000 people took part, which would make it Denmark’s biggest demonstration in more than a decade. Local police don’t give such crowd estimates.The holiday abolition was proposed in December to help raise tax revenues for higher defence spending in wake of the Ukraine war, and is part of the newly formed government’s sweeping reform programme aimed at overcoming challenges to the country’s welfare model. –Agencies
