Denmark looks set to become the next European country to restrict the burqa and the niqab, worn by some Muslim women, after most parties in the Danish parliament backed some sort of ban on facial coverings, DW reported.

The move to ban the full-body coverings in Denmark is backed by the parties in the center-right government coalition, as well as the opposition Social Democrats.

The Liberal Democrats, the coalition's leading party, said that the ban was not religiously motivated.

"This is not a ban on religious clothing, this is a ban on masking," Jacob Ellemann-Jensen, the party's spokesperson, said on Friday.

Denmark's Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen, a member of the Liberal Alliance party that also makes up the governing coalition, likewise described the legislation as a "masking ban."

"There will come a masking ban in Denmark. That's how it is," he wrote on Facebook.

His party, the Liberal Alliance, had previously been one of the staunchest opponents of a ban, saying it limited people’s ability to freely choose their attire, but has now aligned its stance with that of the other coalition parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals.

“So if it is practically possible to have such a ban without betraying ourselves or our own values, then the Liberal Alliance will vote for it,” Mr Samuelsen said.