Culture Minister Zenia Stampe has announced changes to Denmark’s youth culture pass, drawing criticism from several parties behind the agreement who say the trial scheme is being judged too soon.
According to reporting by DR, Stampe of Radikale Venstre signaled the changes just over a year into the two-year trial. The culture pass was launched on September 30, 2025. Several culture spokespeople have now criticized the minister.
The pass targets young people aged 15 to 24 who are outside education and full-time work, or who are enrolled in an FGU program. That amounts to roughly 50,000 young people, and about 8,138 digital culture passes have been activated so far. Stampe says fewer young people than expected have used the scheme.
She told Ritzau on Tuesday that she will consider widening the target group to reach more young people. That would make the pass more of an attempt to build a bridge between young people and cultural life, rather than a purely social policy initiative.
Criticism from the agreement parties
Leila Stockmarr, culture spokesperson for Enhedslisten, says it is far too fast for the minister to write off the work of reaching the most vulnerable young people. She also criticizes that it happened outside the group of parties behind the agreement. She opposes widening the target group if it comes at the expense of vulnerable young people.
SF’s culture spokesperson Charlotte Mølbæk says it was always known that reaching vulnerable young people would be difficult and slow. According to her, that should not be a reason to give up. She says smaller adjustments can be discussed, but the overall vision remains.
Per the Ministry of Culture, demand has been high for the longer cultural programs that form one part of the trial. The ministry therefore plans to allocate about 20 million kroner in unused funds to those programs. Mølbæk calls that a good idea.
Researcher points to timeframe
Anne Mette W. Nielsen, PhD and associate professor at the Center for Youth Research at Aalborg University, says such schemes take time to establish. Young people first have to discover the app, then register, then decide which cultural offerings to use and with whom.
She says that if she were in the ministry, she would set aside two to three years before assessing the results. She also stresses that changes must not disturb the main aim of bringing marginalized young people closer to museums and other cultural institutions. As a researcher, she calls the current activation figure relatively high in a short time.
Stampe writes in a comment that the funding adjustment is meant to ensure the money benefits the most vulnerable young people. She states that the government has not yet decided how the culture pass should look from 2027, and that she looks forward to discussing it with the spokespeople.
