Seven families from Helsingor are arguing in Denmark's Supreme Court that they were evicted from their homes because of their ethnic origin, testing a controversial 2018 law that targets social housing estates where more than half of residents are classified as "non-Western."
The law, once called the "ghetto law," defines "non-Western" as residents from countries outside the EU, with 12 exceptions including the US, Canada, Australia and Norway. The label also applies to Danish citizens born in the country if neither parent is a Danish citizen born there. According to the UN Human Rights Office, this definition "disproportionately means Denmark's non-white, non-European ethnic populations."
Under the law, areas designated as "parallel societies" (social housing zones of at least 1,000 people where more than 50 percent are "non-Western" and that meet two of four criteria on unemployment, crime, education and income) must reduce public family housing to 40 percent by 2030 through sales, demolition or conversion. The government says the goal is integration.
The families' leases were terminated in 2022 after their landlord announced renovations. According to tenants' associations, about 11,000 people across Denmark will have to leave their homes by 2030.
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in December 2025 that a criterion covering many origins could be linked to ethnicity, even if it does not explicitly name an ethnic group. Danish judges must now decide whether "non-Western" rests on residents' ethnic origin and whether people in that category face less favorable treatment, which the CJEU said could include "an increased risk of early termination of their leases."
Lower Danish courts in the Helsingor case previously found that "non-Western" does not describe an ethnic group and therefore did not violate Denmark's Equal Treatment Act. The Supreme Court verdict could come later this month.