On Monday, Minister of Immigration and Integration Morten Bødskov of the Social Democrats (Socialdemokratiet) announced that the government would reintroduce L98.
L98 was a bill that had been presented to Folketinget in January 2026 which would see 2,055 people naturalised and granted Danish citizenship.
When the election was called in February for March, the bill was tossed (as is standard practice), however it was not reintroduced once a new government was in place following the election.
This was because, it was the Social Democrats’ policy that no new citizenships would be granted until after a new political agreement on naturalisation is in place, which won’t be until next year.
However, after internal pressure in the government, with the Green Left (Socialistisk Folkeparti), the Moderates (Moderaterne), and the Social Liberals (Radikale Venstre) supporting a reintroduction of L98, the Social Democrats caved.
Compromise or U-turn?
In the right-wing podcast Borgerlig Tabloid, the Social Democrats’ immigration spokesperson Anders Skriver Jensen was the guest in an episode released on Tuesday to answer questions on this.
The host of the podcast, Joachim B. Olsen (a former MP for Liberal Alliance), pressed Jensen on whether he would acknowledge this was a U-turn from the Social Democrats.
Jensen did not use the word ‘U-turn’ himself, however did use the term ‘compromise’ frequently, noting that the Social Democrats want to introduce an additional screening method for ‘undemocratic views’.
Jensen argued that not being a minister in the government meant that he had not been privy to internal conversations, so could not give further details on which parties pushed the hardest on reintroducing L98.
PM won’t go into details of screenings
In an interview with DR’s Kaare Kvist on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was asked a series of questions about L98 and its introduction too.
Here, she also highlighted her support for a screening model for ‘undemocratic views’. Though when pressed on exactly what would be screened for, she refused to provide details.
She also acknowledged that there would be Danes, born with Danish citizenship, who would have ‘undemocratic views’.
Frederiksen was also asked about whether she had been pressured into reintroducing L98 by the Moderates and Social Liberals, but she disputed these allegations.
Instead, she noted that the applicants on L98 would be re-evaluated before they would be allowed to feature on the reintroduced bill.
She also noted that if some of the applicants are revealed to be problematic for whatever reason, they could of course be taken off the list by Folketinget.
Too many Muslims in Denmark?
Frederiksen was also asked about comments that Thomas Skriver Jensen made over summer, where he said he believes there are too many Muslims in Denmark.
The Prime Minister refused to repeat Jensen’s statement, but said, “there are definitely too many people with muslim backgrounds in Denmark who don’t know how to behave themselves properly.”
Rather than agreeing directly with Jensen, she noted that he had based his statements on statistics around people from Muslim-majority countries representing a disproportionate part of crime statistics.