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Systemic33

And some of them are still culturally at war ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark%E2%80%93Sweden_relation...

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I don't know. Danish news always go "X is bad in Denmark. Meanwhile, X is really good in Sweden."

there's a lot of 'grass is greener on the other side' in all of europe, this is probably the case here.

True enough. Though in this specific case, grass is more likely to be covered by more now on the other side :)

And it used to be that we tried to take their grass by conquest. Now we just go there on vacation.

There used to be two ways to argue for a law proposal in Folketinget (Danish parliament):

"According to science, ..." and "in Sweden, they have..."

As a North American, hearing that the two leading arguments are scientific basis and copying other country's successful programs makes me disgusted with my own politicians.

I'm french, and I feel the same way.

;)

For anyone not familiar with the relationship: the two countries are closer than most neighbouring States in the US are; language is so close that people speak their own in conversation (think US vs. British English) and not only going from one country to the next is simpler and cheaper than going across London, but there is less identity checks.

Fun fact: People usually think that Britain and France has been most at war with one another, but Denmark and Sweden has actually been more at war (at least in terms of unique wars)[0].

Here is a non-exhaustive list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dano-Swedish_war

[0] The Hundred Years' War sort of ruins the statistics in terms of years at war.

That's as maybe, but we hate the French more than Denmark &Sweden hate each other! :P

Except the Scots traditionally don't hate the French ;-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Alliance

Could this then be why the English hate the Scots?

In fact, do the English like anyone at all..?

The English do not hate the Scots - and if you look at the number of English people who have houses and holiday in France they don't really hate France either....

I know, I know; it was in jest. And the English do seem to like France. We can look back in time to see that much. (Another joke..). I'm still not sure they like the French.

The English don't like any foreigners. We're not even particularly fond of the English.

We're amazingly tolerant, living in peace when surrounded by people we don't like ;)

I don't know how strong are the animosities between the old enemies in the western europe but I can assure you the hungarian government and its political class in general thrives in maintaining strong animosities against all its neighbors (excepting Austria maybe) and also they are perceived (by the neighbors) as very nationalistic and arrogant (very few of their patriotic discourses fail to recall the hungarian past glory, the dominance in the area and the injustice of the Trianon) and this leads to a lot of real tensions in the area.

As a Swede I can honestly say that for all intents and purposes Sweden, Norway and Denmark are all the same and we love each other.

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