Greenland’s Prime Minister Muthe Bowrup Egede has emphasized his desire for independence from Denmark, marking a significant change in the rhetoric surrounding the island’s future, Reuters reported.
“It is time for us to step up and shape our future ourselves, including in terms of who we will work closely with and who will be our trading partners,” Egede said in his New Year’s Day speech.
He noted that “our cooperation with the Kingdom of Denmark has not resulted in full equality.” “Now it is time for our country to take the next step. Like other countries around the world, we must work to remove the obstacles to cooperation, which we can describe as the shackles of colonialism, and move forward,” the Greenlandic prime minister said.
Egede added that the decision on independence is up to the people of Greenland, but did not say when the vote might take place.
Greenland’s government has reportedly rejected US President-elect Donald Trump’s offers to buy the island twice, in 2019 and again in 2024, with Egede asserting that “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and we will never be for sale.”
Parliamentary elections are due in Greenland by April 6.
Reuters writes that an independence movement has been gaining momentum in Greenland in recent years, in part because of revelations of Danish actions in the twentieth century. Greenland was a Danish colony until 1953, but is now a self-governing territory and was granted the right to declare independence by vote in 2009. In 2023, the Greenlandic government presented its first draft constitution.
independence from Denmark, Prime Minister of Greenland
