Michael de Laine

By Michael de Laine, The Copenhagen Voice, 12 August 2009

Danish shopping hours are to be deregulated in two stages over the next three years, Economic and Business Affairs Minister Lene Espersen said yesterday. Retailers are pleased with the move, but the leading trade union for shop staff is against it.

Denmark’s rather restrictive Sunday shopping hours are to liberalised from 1 July 2010 and deregulated from 1 October 2012 if the Danish parliament adopts bill that will tabled later this year by Economic and Business Affairs Minister Lene Espersen.

According to the plans, all shops will be allowed to open on about 30 Sundays a year from 1 July 2010, compared with the present 20. The 30 days are the first and last Sunday in each month, all Sundays in December, and a further four Sundays that each shop can decide for itself.

Under the later deregulation, from 1 October 2012, the only closing times enforced by law will be on major holidays. Shops must close at 3.00 pm New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve, and they must be closed all day on New Year’s Day, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Easter Monday, Great Prayer Day, Ascension Day, Whitsunday, Whit Monday, Constitution Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Retailers with annual sales of less than 25 million kroner, as well as shops that sell certain products such as garden tools and plants, would be exempt from the new law.

“It has never been easy to negotiate changes to the shopping hours law as the partners in the retail sector have never been in agreement,” Espersen said at a news conference yesterday. “The two-stage liberalisation harmonises well with the government’s strategy for the legislation, and the shops will have an opportunity to prepare for the liberalisation - also with regard to their staff.”

HK Handel, the major trade union representing shop workers, does not support the proposed changes, which it says will allow shops to remain open 24 hours a day from Constitution Day to Christmas Eve as there are no public holidays between them.

“The shopping hours act is a major issue for us,” the union said. “That’s not because it’s the law that regulates our sector, but because the law has important consequences for the retail trade - both for the development in the number and type of shops and also for the working conditions of the shops’ staff.”

The union warned that deregulation of shopping hours would make it more difficult for smaller shops to compete - both in terms of price and their possibilities of being open for many hours.

“Many small shops have few employees,” HK Handel said. “Therefore it could be very difficult for them to remain open all seven days a week. Shops in outlying districts and smaller specialist shops will find it difficult to survive.”

“If there are no shops in the smaller towns, house prices will fall, elderly people would have to take a bus to buy their milk, and staff in the small shops would lose their jobs,” the union’s deputy chair, Herdis Poulsen, said to the Politiken newspaper. She also predicted that shop workers will have to work on additional Sundays as a result of the proposals, and this would affect their family lives.

Shop owners and wholesalers such as De samvirkende Købmænd (DSK), Dansk Supermarked, Coop Danmark, Dansk Detail, Danmarks Sportshandlerforening and Dansk Erhverv helped negotiate the changes with the Economic and Business Affairs Ministry. They were generally pleased with the proposals.

DSK’s managing director John Wagner saw little change to evening opening hours.

“I don’t think there will be longer opening hours in the evening,” he said to Politiken. “At the moment, the larger shops can be open from 6.00 am on Monday morning until 5.00 pm on Saturday if they want to, but most close at 8.00 pm on weekdays,” he said. “Perhaps they will keep on longer on Saturdays in the larger towns.”

As well as advantages for consumers, Wagner said the proposals do imply disadvantages for the retail sector.

“The number of shops that will disappear will depend on the economy and, not least, of other changes in laws governing commercial enterprises,” he said. “If the 4,000 to 5,000 smallest shops in this country are to survive both the current crisis and the shopping hours deregulation, politicians must not make their situation worse.”

Click here and here to see Pamela Juhl’s video reports from Lene Espersen’s news conference.