Is there any job security for tenured academics in Denmark? There recently was some bad press regarding job security for tenured academics in Denmark. A critical article in a newspaper edited by University of Copenhagen employees mentions the firing of two professors, one of them (Thomas Højrup) due to a "cost-cutting measure".

To get a balanced picture of the matter, I looked into official information as provided by universities, and found the following explanation by the Copenhagen Business School: 


  A position as associate professor or full professor at a Danish university is a permanent position. The employment and working conditions of academic staff employed at Danish Universities are primarily regulated by collective agreements between the Danish Government and the trade unions. According to the collective agreement [...] Danish Universities, however, can dismiss a member of the academic staff, employed in a permanent position, but only in special circumstances, due to either disciplinary offenses or as a result of considerable budgetary restrictions or other unexpected institutions circumstances.


This sounds to me like a university could easily get rid of any tenured employee they don't like anymore (for whatever reason) by declaring a new "strategic orientation", which results in an unavailability of funding for said employee.

Consequently, I wonder is if there is any job security at all for tenured academics in Denmark. Specifically, are there usually any "safeguards" that prohibit a university from firing a person they don't like by reallocating their funding?
I have recently been employed at University of Copenhagen in a temporary position. The current situation is definitely problematic.

Denmark has the general problem (shared with many other countries), that basic funding for universities has been cut over many years, and transferred to project specific funding for research centers or individual grants - more often than not provided by private companies and foundations, rather than the state.

This means that the extraordinary circumstances have become rather ordinary, and the case of prof. Thybo mentioned in the article, is not the only known case. Adding to this that many younger people are now being hired in assistant professor positions without tenure, although being at the age and reputation where they should really get tenure track positions or tenured positions, it certainly seems that University of Copenhagen is phasing out the concept of tenure.

To summarize: I think the conclusion that there is no job security at all in Denmark is rather harsh, but definitely not without reason. I would recommend anyone aiming for faculty positions in Denmark in general, and University of Copenhagen in particular, to do solid research into the financial situation of the department they are considering joining first.