Greenland's politics: an exit clause with a price written into it

What the Self-Government Act lets Nuuk take over

Act no. 473 of 12 June 2009 replaced the Home Rule Act of 29 November 1978, and it opens with a recognition the earlier law lacked: that "the people of Greenland is a people pursuant to international law with the right of self-determination". It describes itself as an agreement between Naalakkersuisut, the Greenland government, and the Danish government "as equal partners". Denmark notified the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the Act on 7 October 2009.

Home rule, approved in a referendum on 17 January 1979 and in force from 1 May that year, had let Naalakkersuisut assume control over 17 areas of government. The 2009 Act added 33 more and sorted them into two lists in a schedule at the back. List I holds five fields, among them industrial injury compensation, road traffic and the law of property and obligations, which Greenland may take over whenever it decides. List II holds 28, among them the police and prosecution service, the courts, criminal law, family law, aviation, border control, financial supervision and the mineral resource area. Greenland fixes the date for those too, but only after negotiating with the Danish authorities, because the Danish Prime Minister's Office judges that they need more preparation.

Every transfer comes with its bill. Section 6 makes Greenland finance a field "from the date of assumption", and the Prime Minister's Office describes the whole arrangement as resting on "accordance between rights and obligations". Taking over the police means paying for the police, so in Nuuk each transfer is also a budget decision.

The Act also sets out how the two sides settle a quarrel over who holds a power. Under section 19, either government may send the question to a board of seven: two members named by the Danish government, two by Naalakkersuisut and three Supreme Court judges. If the four political members agree, the matter is settled. If they split, the three judges decide it. Section 17 runs the other way: a Danish government bill that applies to Greenland goes to the Greenland authorities for comment before it reaches the Folketing, and a bill written for Greenland alone has to wait for that comment.

Greenland took over the mineral resource area on 1 January 2010, a decision its authorities made in November 2009. It was the transfer that the rest of the economic chapter depends on.

How the block grant formula ties money to independence

Section 5 of the Act fixes an annual Danish subsidy of DKK 3,439.6 million, stated in 2009 price and wage levels, adjusted each year by the general price and wage index of the Danish Finance Act and paid in advance in twelve monthly instalments. Section 7 gives Greenland all revenue from mineral resource activities: licence payments, tax on licence holders, public stakes in mining companies and withholding tax on their shareholders.

Section 8 connects the two. In any year in which mineral revenue exceeds DKK 75 million, the subsidy falls by half of the excess, and the DKK 75 million threshold is itself indexed. Section 10 covers the end point. If the subsidy reaches zero, the two governments open negotiations on how mineral revenue is shared, on whether the subsidy resumes and on the services Denmark provides. The Prime Minister's Office puts the default more bluntly: once reduced to zero, the subsidy is discontinued "and no further subsidy will be provided hereafter".

The Act therefore describes a single self-financing road away from Copenhagen, and it runs through a mine. Statistics Greenland recorded the grant at DKK 4,141.5 million in 2023 and at DKK 4,323.7 million in 2024, a preliminary figure, against public revenue of DKK 14.8 billion and expenditure of DKK 14.3 billion in 2024. The Danish Institute for International Studies put the grant at roughly US$600 million a year in October 2025, and noted that the Danish state also carries defence, the coast guard and parts of law enforcement. Wikipedia's figure for all Danish aid, which counts more than the grant, averaged DKK 5.4 billion a year between 2019 and 2023, more than 20% of Greenland's GDP.

The mines have been slow to come. The New York Times reported in March 2025 that dozens of exploratory projects had produced two active mines, and in January 2025 the Danish economist Torben M. Andersen assessed that mining would not play a significant role in the economy for at least ten years. Statistics Greenland counted 93 people employed in mining and quarrying in 2024, out of 29,131 in work.

What the grant pays for

The grant is meant to cover the fields Greenland has already taken over, and most public services are free to citizens and businesses. Public administration and services employed 12,733 people in 2024, by Statistics Greenland's count. Danmarks Nationalbank found in 2019 that about 17,000 people worked either in the public sector or for companies the government owned, 63% of the 27,000 in work. The self-government wholly owns Royal Greenland, the retailer KNI, Royal Arctic Line, Air Greenland and the telecoms company Tusass.

The central bank's analysis of 6 January 2026 found that public finances "deteriorated surprisingly sharply" in 2025, that liquidity in the Greenland Treasury fell below the level it considers sufficient in the second half of that year, and that the 2026 Finance Act had to tighten. It expects the population to fall by 20% by 2050. An earlier Nationalbank analysis projected a permanent funding gap of 5.4% of GDP, just over DKK 1 billion a year in 2019 figures, if welfare schemes stayed as they were.

How Inatsisartut and Naalakkersuisut are formed

The Self-Government Act says nothing about how the Greenland parliament and government are composed. It leaves that to Greenland, and uses the Greenlandic words for both. Inatsisartut has 31 members, elected by proportional representation for four years by all adults aged 18 and over. Its laws are called Acts of Inatsisartut and take effect, unless they say otherwise, on the day after they appear in Greenland's official legal register.

After an election the first attempt at a coalition usually goes to the leader of the party that won the most seats. If that fails, the chair of parliament asks every party chair to name someone else, and whoever collects the most support gets the next attempt. The government, Naalakkersuisut, usually has about nine members. The coalition partners divide the ministries between them and each party chooses who fills its share. The head of government is called Naalakkersuisut Siulittaasuat and the other members are each a Naalakkersuisoq. Both the parliament and the government sit in Nuuk.

The Danish crown has one official in the chamber. The high commissioner, the Rigsombudsmand, is appointed on behalf of the monarch, holds a seat in Inatsisartut and may speak there on affairs common to Denmark and Greenland. The office carries no vote. In the other direction, Greenland elects two of the 179 members of the Folketing at each Danish general election, most recently on 1 November 2022.

The courts follow the Danish civil law system. The District Courts and the Court of Greenland hear cases at first instance, the High Court of Greenland at second, and a case may go on to the Supreme Court of Denmark with the permission of the Appeals Permission Board.

Local government was redrawn in 2009, when three counties holding 18 municipalities gave way to much larger units. One of them, Qaasuitsup, was split in 2018, which left five: Kommune Kujalleq in the south, Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq around Nuuk and taking in every community on the east coast, Qeqqata Kommunia, Kommune Qeqertalik around Disko Bay and Avannaata Kommunia in the north-west. Municipal councils are also elected every four years. Two areas belong to no municipality: the Northeast Greenland National Park and Pituffik Space Base, a concession to the United States.

Why Greenland's parties divide over pace

Party politics in Greenland runs on two axes, independence against union and left against right. Britannica describes Siumut as a social democratic party that favours self-determination while keeping close relations with Denmark, Atassut as a more conservative party that has supported the historical relationship, Inuit Ataqatigiit as calling for full independence, and Demokraatit as founded by a breakaway faction of Siumut. The party system was long dominated by Siumut and Inuit Ataqatigiit, and their hold began to weaken after the snap elections of 2014 and 2018.

Independence itself is the stated aim of most parties, including Siumut, Inuit Ataqatigiit, Naleraq and Nunatta Qitornai, so the argument is about timing and cost. When Kim Kielsen was re-elected Siumut leader in 2017 with a strong majority, observers read it as a win for the "slow-independence" faction. His challenger, Vittus Qujaukitsoq, had argued for independence even if it meant losing the Danish grant.

The election of 11 March 2025 drew 28,620 votes. Fourteen of the 31 members elected were women.

The Wikipedia account of the independence movement connects the Demokraatit result of March 2025 to American statements about annexing the island, and records the independence campaigner Aqqaluk Lynge saying publicly that Greenland should stay within Denmark as protection against American interference. The same vote gave Naleraq, which that account calls Greenland's "most radical pro-independence party", 24.5%.

Three weeks later the municipal elections of 1 April 2025 produced a different map. Siumut took 33.6% across Greenland and Naleraq 11.0%. Demokraatit carried 38.9% in Kommune Kujalleq in the south, Inuit Ataqatigiit 35.0% in Kommuneqarfik Sermersooq around the capital. Naleraq took 23.5% in Qeqqata Kommunia and 0.7% in Kujalleq.

What Greenlanders answer when independence has a price

The polling runs in two directions at once. A poll in 2016 found 64% for full independence, and one in 2017 found 78% against it if it meant a fall in living standards. In 2019, 67.8% supported independence at some point in the following two decades. A poll in 2025 found 84% in favour and 9% against, and on the follow-up question 61% opposed independence if it lowered their standard of living, with 39% in favour.

The Danish Institute for International Studies reads these numbers as consistent over time: Greenlanders do not want independence at the price of the collapse of the welfare state. Its October 2025 analysis concludes that independence would depend on substantial Danish help continuing afterwards, which the Greenlandic government has yet to persuade Denmark to accept. In a Folketing debate in 2018 the Danish prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that Greenland needed to make clear whether it wished to stay in the kingdom or leave, and the grant would end on independence.

Campaigners in 2008 put forward 2021, three hundred years after the Danish mission arrived, as a possible date. A commission presented a draft constitution for an independent Greenland in 2023, and in February 2024 Greenland officially declared independence to be its goal. The procedure under section 21 is covered in the history of Greenland: a decision by the people, an agreement negotiated between the two governments, the consent of Inatsisartut, a referendum in Greenland and the consent of the Folketing. Some legal writers argue that Greenland, as a former colony, also holds a right of self-determination under international law that is separate from the Act and would allow a unilateral declaration.

Greenland has never held an independence referendum. Iceland held one in 1918, the Faroe Islands in 1946 and Newfoundland in 1948.

How Greenland left the European Community and stayed Danish

More than 70% of Greenlanders opposed joining the European Common Market, and Greenland entered on 1 January 1973 as part of Denmark regardless. Once home rule was in place, 53% voted on 23 February 1982 to leave, over the Community's commercial fishing rules and its ban on sealskin products. The Greenland Treaty took the island out on 1 February 1985. Denmark stayed in.

What replaced membership is an association. Greenland is one of the Overseas Countries and Territories, so EU law largely does not apply there outside trade, and it has a separate fisheries agreement with the Union. It still receives money from the European Development Fund, the Multiannual Financial Framework, the European Investment Bank and EU programmes. Greenlanders are Danish citizens, which makes them citizens of the European Union living on territory outside it. Greenland opened its own representation to the EU in Brussels in 1992.

Who conducts Greenland's foreign relations

Foreign, security and defence policy remain affairs of the realm under section 19 of the Danish constitution, and the Self-Government Act says so in section 11. Inside that limit it gives Naalakkersuisut real treaty-making power. Under section 12 the Greenland government may negotiate and conclude agreements with foreign states and international organisations that concern Greenland alone and fall entirely within fields it has taken over, signing as "the Kingdom of Denmark in respect of Greenland". It may do so jointly with the Faroese government where both are concerned. The Act folded in an authorisation arrangement of 2005 and the Itilleq Declaration of 2003.

Where Copenhagen negotiates, section 13 makes it inform Nuuk first on anything of particular importance to Greenland and submit such agreements to Naalakkersuisut before concluding them. If Denmark concludes one without Greenland's consent, it is to have no effect for Greenland "to the widest extent possible". A Danish, Faroese and Greenlandic contact committee on foreign, security and defence policy was set up in October 2021, and the exchange of classified information is part of its work.

Greenland keeps representations in Copenhagen, Brussels, Reykjavik and, since 2014, Washington. Foreign states keep no embassies in Greenland and deal with it through their missions in Copenhagen. It takes part in the Nordic Council, the Arctic Council, the West Nordic Council, the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the International Whaling Commission. A boundary question with Canada over Hans Island, open since 1973, was settled in 2022 by dividing the island roughly in half.

Who defends the island

Greenland has no armed forces. Defence belongs to Denmark, through the Joint Arctic Command with its patrol ships, maritime patrol aircraft, helicopters and the Sirius dog sled patrol, and Greenland has been inside NATO since 1949 as part of Denmark. The Greenland Defense Agreement of 1951 let the United States keep its bases and add new ones with the consent of Denmark and Greenland. Pituffik Space Base in the north-west is a concession to the United States in perpetuity, run by the United States Space Force.

In 2025 the American president repeatedly pressed for the island to pass to the United States. A poll that January found 85% of Greenlanders against joining the United States and 6% in favour. In March 2025 the leaders of all Greenlandic parties issued a joint rejection of American attempts to annex Greenland.

In which language Greenland is governed

Section 20 of the Act makes Greenlandic the official language. The Danish Prime Minister's Office notes that Danish may still be used in official matters under a Greenland act on administrative procedure, and that the Self-Government authorities are expected to keep teaching Danish so that young Greenlanders can study in Denmark and elsewhere.

The United Nations Regional Information Centre describes the gap this leaves. The political and administrative elites mostly speak Danish, while about 70% of the population speaks only Greenlandic, which raises the question of whether a country can be governed in a language that a minority speaks. A report by Katti Frederiksen and Carl Christian Olsen on the status of Greenlandic found that giving Danish priority in politics and administration means some voices count for more than others. Kim Kielsen, as premier, proposed making Greenlandic mandatory for public employees. Critics said the rule would drive away foreign professionals and Greenlanders educated abroad.

Of the 29,131 people in work in 2024, 2,633 came from Denmark, and 993 of them worked in public administration and services. Danmarks Nationalbank reported in April 2025 that recruiting for health, education and social services had become difficult and that dependence on foreign labour, especially from Asia, was growing.