Last week I spent a couple of days in Denmark on government business. It is a fascinating country which has recently had a prominent profile in Scotland, not least because of successful Danish TV series such as Borgen and The Killing.
I began my trip speaking at a North Sea Commission conference in Aalborg in north Jutland – a city founded by the Vikings thanks to its position on the Limfjord waterway.
It was fitting that the theme of the conference was about North Sea communities and the importance of developing our resources in terms of fisheries, renewables and oil and gas. There is much expertise and experience that we can share and benefit from in the future.
I also spent a day in Copenhagen, where I was interviewed for the Danish newspaper Politiken and the national TV station DR. I also attended a dinner hosted by the British Ambassador Vivien Life with a range of Danish politicians and academics.
Denmark has also been drawn in to our own referendum debate of late and it was revealing to hear the detail of the Danish experience first-hand. It struck me that the comparisons are often simplistic and this was confirmed as the discussion turned to issues as diverse as taxation, Greenland, the future of the EU and… the unexplainable popularity of Runrig in Germany.
The view from Maersk’s headquarter building must be one of the most stunning in the capital, looking over the architecture of central Copenhagen. We had a useful meeting, as I also did with the businesses of Dansk Industri, Denmark’s equivalent of the CBI, and the trade ministry of the Danish Government. It is always good to see how informed people are on the issues surrounding the referendum here in Scotland.
Finally, I gave a speech to a 170-strong audience at the University of Copenhagen in which I made the case for a strong Scotland remaining part of a strong UK. There was a great deal of interest in the claim an independent Scotland would be able to replicate Danish levels of public spending without equivalent levels of personal and business taxation – a point I covered in detail at the event.