With the next step Greenland might become Australia 1901. Now the people of Greenland will control their natural resources and not Denmark, marking a further step towards independence. So the situation is perhaps closer to New South Wales 1855.
The article in Deutsche Wella does not suggest that the new government will have a “governor-general”-type figure to keep watch on things while the new government takes wing. It seems that things have been more glacial there: Denmark has ruled Greenland for almost 300 years. Greenlandic will be the new official language.
The Arctic island faces a historic shift on Sunday when a new self-rule status takes effect, the product of a referendum last November in which just over 75 percent of Greenlanders voted to take back more powers from Denmark after years of negotiations.
Greenland’s new Premier, Kuupik Kleist, will preside over the giant step when he and Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II officially mark the expansion of “hjemmestyre” (“home rule”) into “selvstyre” (“self- rule”).
Under the self-rule agreement, Greenlanders will be recognized as a distinct people with the right to self-determination and Greenlandic will become the territory’s official language.
“Greenlanders wish with all their heart to become independent one day and we can do it,” said Lars-Emil Johansen, a member of the social democratic Siumut (Forward) party, who served as the head of the island’s local government from 1991 to 1997.
Denmark granted Greenland limited sovereignty when its parliament approved home rule in 1979, but this new deal – which comes into effect on Greenland’s national holiday and some three centuries after the first Danish ships landed – gives the island of 57,000 inhabitants more control over its natural resources such as oil, gas, gold and diamonds. Denmark will retain control of defense, foreign and monetary policy only.
Global Warming works in Greensland’s favor because it uncovers the ice cover allowing the natural resources, including gas and oil (we are told) to more accessible. As the ice melts, the prospect is that the population might increase from the existing 57,000, and the Australian model might be useful. At the moment, the history of political dependency is reflective of economic dependency. Fishing is a major occupation.
Interestingly, Greenland stores 10% of the world’s fresh water as ice, so the economic prospects for the planet as well as Greenland are in reality not looking too hot, as that resource will presumably progressively melt and add to a rising sea level, and a loss of reflectivity.