Greenland gets a new government shortly before Vance visit

With the broadest possible government coalition, Greenland wants to get through the time of the recurring ownership claims by US President Donald Trump: A good two weeks after the parliamentary election, the social-liberal democracy agreed on Friday with three other parties on a new coalition. The new Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen from Democratic and the other party leader signed the coalition agreement in the capital Nuuk.

This will represent four of the five parties in the Greenland parliament of InstatisArtut in the new government, including the left Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) of the previous head of government Múte B. Eggede. In a statement, the government parties announced that they wanted to talk to Denmark about the future status of the largest island on earth.

The agreement was reached just a few hours before the expected arrival of US Vice President JD Vance on the Arctic Island, whose acquisition US President Donald Trump was interested.

Such a broad government cooperation is very unusual in Greenland, but is considered in response to Trump’s repeated statements. The only 33 -year -old Nielsen had asked the parties to have disagreements and form a broad coalition in order to demonstrate unity in view of Trump’s campaign to incorporate the partial autonomous territory into the United States.

The economic -friendly democracy, which advocates slow independence from Denmark, emerged as the strongest party from the parliamentary election on March 11th. She tripled her mandates to ten seats. The coalition, which covers large parts of the political spectrum, has 23 of the 31 parliamentary seats. The Naleraq party, a decisive supporter of independence, who doubled her seats to eight when you choose, will not be part of the coalition – it now forms the opposition alone.

The government is only officially launched when parliament has been approved. In view of the majority of the coalitioners, this is a matter of form.

Vance wanted to visit the US military base Pituffik in the north in Greenland. The visit met with little enthusiasm among the Greenlanders. Vance had announced his visit to Greenland on Tuesday, his wife Usha Vance’s journey there was already planned. This had triggered a diplomatic dispute between Copenhagen and Washington.

However, the original visit program was slimmed down, visiting a popular dog sled race by the Second Lady. Vance emphasized that during the visit he wanted to get an idea of ​​the security situation around the geopolitically important island.

According to opinion polls, almost all 57,000 Graönlanders reject a connection from the country to the USA. Trump had already raised the idea of ​​buying Greenland in 2019 during his first presidency. In January, he then said that he would not rule out the use of military or economic pressure.

The original travel plans had been sharply criticized by the governments of Greenland such as Denmark. The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen spoke of “unacceptable pressure” last week. The later restriction of the trip to the visit to the US military base was then rated by Copenhagen as “very positive”. However, Trump confirmed on Wednesday that the United States “must have” the huge island.

The largely autonomous island of Greenland belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland is the largest island on earth. From a geographical point of view, it is located on the North American continent and extends to the Arctic. The island is of great importance for the world climate and for the military control of the Arctic, it is also rich in raw materials such as rare earths. Important shipping routes also run in the region.