Apparently, there should be more confidentiality over Danish export guarantees. This is the position reached by Denmark’s Ministry for Industry, Business and Financial Affairs seven years after the country’s export credit agency guaranteed financing for a copper mining project in Armenia that caused human rights violations and environmental destruction .
In 2013, the Danish state pension fund agreed to finance an Armenian copper mining project, Teghut, in the north of the country. The investment, a DKK 350 million ($62m) loan for equipment and services to the mine, was guaranteed by Denmark’s Export Credit Agency (EKF).
As a result of the Danish-funded mine construction, the Teghut mine caused the pollution of local rivers, with damage so severe that local farmers and fruit growers lost their livelihoods. A dam containing liquid waste from the mine still threatens to collapse and bury a nearby village, and a large area of pristine forest in the scenic and mountainous region – home to a range of endangered species – was cut down. In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that land owned by local villagers had been expropriated in violation of their human rights, and ordered the Armenian state to pay compensation.
