The self-governing Danish territory has been in the spotlight since US President-elect Donald Trump reiterated his wish to buy the island.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede has called for the North Atlantic island to pursue independence from its former colonial ruler Denmark in a New Year speech.
The world’s biggest island — which is home to about 57,000 people — was a Danish colony until it become a self-governing territory of Denmark in 1979. Since 2009, Greenland has held the right to declare independence through a referendum.
“The history and current conditions have shown that our cooperation with the Kingdom of Denmark has not succeeded in creating full equality,” said Egede, who is a member of the pro-independence Community of the People (IA) party.
“It is now time for our country to take the next step,” he added. “Like other countries in the world, we must work to remove the obstacles to cooperation – which we can describe as the shackles of colonialism — and move forward.”
Egede’s speech this week came after US President-elect Donald Trump last month repeated his desire to purchase Greenland from Denmark, having first expressed the wish in 2019 during his first term in office. Responding to Trump’s latest comments, Egede last week said that Greenland is “not for sale and will never be for sale”.
An independence movement is gaining momentum partly because of multiple revelations of misconduct by Danish authorities last century, including a forced contraception campaign in the 1960s and 1970s.
Egede suggested an independence referendum could coincide with parliamentary elections in April.
“Work has already begun on creating the framework for Greenland as an independent state,” he said. “It is necessary to take major steps … The upcoming new election period must, together with the citizens, create these new steps.”
Greenland — whose capital Nuuk is nearer to New York than Copenhagen — is rich in mineral, oil, and natural gas resources, but it relies on annual subsidies from Denmark worth some €500 million a year.
Home to a large US Air Force air base, Greenland is strategically vital for the US military. Following Trump’s latest remarks about buying the island last month, Denmark announced it would increase defence spending there by at least €1.3 billion — though Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the timing was just an “irony of fate”.
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