Greenland and the European Union

Based on Wikipedia: Greenland and the European Union

Greenland is the only place on Earth that has actually quit the European Union.

Not threatened to leave. Not negotiated for special status. Actually left. In 1985, after a referendum where fifty-three percent of Greenlanders voted to get out, the world's largest island became the first and only territory to exit what was then called the European Communities. Brexit happened three decades later, but Greenland got there first.

The story of how this happened—and whether it might reverse—tells us something important about sovereignty, fish, and the strange political geometry of a massive Arctic island that belongs to Denmark but increasingly doesn't want to belong to anyone.

The Constitutional Puzzle

First, let's untangle the peculiar political status of Greenland, because it's genuinely weird.

Greenland is not an independent country. It's an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. Think of the Kingdom of Denmark as a political umbrella covering three distinct places: metropolitan Denmark (the part you see on European maps), the Faroe Islands (a small archipelago in the North Atlantic), and Greenland (which is absolutely enormous but has only about fifty-six thousand people).

Denmark is a full member of the European Union. The Faroe Islands never joined. And Greenland joined, then left, but kept a special relationship.

This means Greenland currently has the status of an Overseas Country or Territory, or OCT in EU parlance. It's associated with the EU but not part of it. Think of OCTs as the EU's extended family—places like French Polynesia, the Caribbean Netherlands, or Greenland that have constitutional ties to EU member states but remain outside the union's main structures.

Here's where it gets interesting: because Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, everyone who lives there is technically a citizen of an EU member state. This means Greenlanders have EU citizenship. They can move freely to Berlin, Paris, or Copenhagen. They can work anywhere in the EU without a visa. But Greenland itself doesn't follow EU law, doesn't contribute to the EU budget in the way members do, and isn't subject to the Common Fisheries Policy that governs who can catch what in European waters.

It's a one-way door: Greenlanders can go to Europe, but European fishing boats mostly cannot come to Greenland.

Why They Left: It's About the Fish

When Denmark joined the European Communities in 1973, Greenland came along automatically. At that time, Greenland had no autonomy—it was simply governed as part of Denmark.

But in 1979, Greenland achieved home rule. This gave the island substantial self-government over domestic affairs while Denmark retained control of foreign policy, defense, and currency. With that new autonomy came new thinking about what it meant to be tied to Europe.

The breaking point was fish.

Greenland's economy depends overwhelmingly on fishing. It's not a diverse economy with manufacturing, services, and agriculture. It's fish, primarily. And the EU's Common Fisheries Policy treated all European waters as a shared resource, with quotas distributed among member states. From Brussels' perspective, this made sense—prevent overfishing through coordinated management. From Nuuk, Greenland's capital, it looked like wealthy European countries carving up Greenland's natural resources.

In 1982, Greenlanders voted in a referendum on whether to remain in the European Communities. Fifty-three percent voted to leave. Turnout was high. The message was clear.

Three years later, in 1985, the Greenland Treaty formalized the exit. Greenland became an OCT, and control of its fishing waters returned to Greenlandic authorities.

The Trade Relationship Today

Leaving the EU didn't mean severing ties with Europe. Greenland's economy remains tightly bound to the continent.

In 2010—the most recent detailed figures in the historical record—Greenland exported three hundred thirty-one million euros worth of goods to the EU. That represented over ninety-two percent of everything Greenland sold to the world. Almost all of it was food and live animals—in other words, fish and shellfish.

Imports told a similar story: Greenland brought in six hundred fourteen million euros from the EU, about sixty-nine percent of everything it bought from abroad. Most of that was machinery, transport equipment, and fuel—the things you need to run a fishing industry in the Arctic.

So while Greenland left the political union, it remained economically enmeshed. The EU is Greenland's main trading partner by an enormous margin. But from the EU's perspective, Greenland barely registers: it ranks as the EU's one hundred and third largest trading partner, somewhere between negligible and rounding error.

The Seal Fur Controversy

In 2009, the EU passed a ban on seal products—fur, oil, and meat from seals—on animal welfare grounds. The images of baby seals being clubbed had generated public outrage across Europe, and the ban was popular.

But it created a serious problem for Greenland.

Seal hunting in Greenland is not a commercial luxury industry. It's a traditional Inuit practice, and for many communities, it's an important source of income in an economy with very few alternatives. The EU recognized this and created an exemption: Inuit communities in Greenland and Canada could continue hunting seals for subsistence and small-scale local trade.

The problem was that "small-scale" was the operative phrase. The exemption didn't allow Greenlandic seal products to be sold in European markets at any significant volume. And since the EU was the main buyer, this effectively killed the commercial market.

The numbers are stark: between 2006 and a few years after the ban, Greenland's seal pelt exports dropped ninety percent—from sixty million Danish kroner to just six million annually. That's a collapse, not a decline. Communities that depended on seal hunting saw their economic foundations vanish, and many felt the EU exemption was performative—technically there, but economically useless.

EU Funding and the Fishing Agreement

When Greenland left the EU in 1985, both sides recognized the need for a continuing relationship. The result was a series of fishing agreements: the EU would pay Greenland for access to its waters, and that money would help restructure Greenland's fishing fleet and fund development programs.

Until 2006, all EU funds to Greenland—about forty-two point eight million euros per year—came through this fishing agreement. Then something changed: between 2007 and 2013, the EU started providing twenty-five million euros per year outside of fishing, focused on sustainable development.

This was not purely altruistic. The amount Greenland received was roughly equivalent to what it had been getting in EU structural funds before leaving. Think of it as a divorce settlement: we'll keep paying you what you were getting, just under a different label.

But the European Court of Auditors eventually weighed in and said the EU was overpaying. The amount of money being transferred didn't match the quantity of fish European vessels were actually catching in Greenlandic waters. The deal was renegotiated.

Between 2014 and 2020, the EU allocated two hundred seventeen point eight million euros for Greenland, with a focus on education and sustainable development. This represents about seven percent of Greenland's annual budget—not trivial, but not dominant either.

Geopolitical Importance and Climate Change

In March 2015, something unusual happened: the President of the European Commission, the Prime Minister of Denmark, and the Premier of Greenland signed a "Joint Declaration on relations between the European Union, on the one hand, and the Government of Greenland and the Government of Denmark, on the other."

The language was diplomatic boilerplate, but the subtext was clear: the EU now considers Greenland geopolitically important.

Why? Because of what's under the ice and what's happening to the ice.

Greenland sits on vast reserves of rare earth minerals—elements essential for batteries, electronics, and renewable energy technology. As Arctic ice melts due to climate change, these resources are becoming more accessible. New shipping routes are opening through Arctic waters, routes that could transform global trade.

And Greenland is right in the middle of it all.

For the EU, having a friendly relationship with Greenland means access to critical minerals, influence over Arctic shipping lanes, and a geopolitical foothold in a region where Russia, China, and the United States are all positioning for advantage. The phrase "gigantic Arctic possibilities" started appearing in Danish and EU policy discussions, and it refers to exactly this: mining, shipping, and strategic positioning.

The United States has periodically floated the idea of buying Greenland outright—most recently during the Trump administration, which Greenland politely declined. But the fact that such proposals exist tells you how valuable the island has become.

Could Greenland Rejoin?

The Brexit debate in the United Kingdom reignited conversations in Greenland about EU membership. If Britain could leave, and Greenland had already left, could Greenland come back?

In 2021, about forty percent of Greenlanders said they would vote to rejoin the EU if given the chance. By 2024, that number had jumped to sixty percent. That's a dramatic shift in public opinion, and it reflects changing calculations about Greenland's future.

The arguments for rejoining are primarily economic. Greenland's economy is small and vulnerable. Full EU membership would bring structural funds, development assistance, and deeper integration into European markets. It would also give Greenland a voice in EU institutions—a seat at the table where decisions about Arctic policy are increasingly being made.

The arguments against rejoining are the same as they were in 1982: the Common Fisheries Policy. Fish remain central to Greenland's economy, and ceding control over fishing rights to Brussels remains unacceptable to many Greenlanders. There's also a strong current of independence sentiment—many Greenlanders want more autonomy from Denmark, not a new arrangement that might constrain it.

Iceland faced a similar dilemma. During the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland began negotiations to join the EU, and there was hope that Iceland might secure an exception to the Common Fisheries Policy that could create a template for Greenland. But those negotiations stalled and were eventually abandoned. Without a solution to the fisheries question, Greenlandic EU membership remains a theoretical exercise.

The Greenland Model and Brexit

When the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU in 2016, some observers pointed to Greenland as a precedent. Look, they said, Greenland left and maintained a good relationship with Europe. Brexit could work the same way.

But the comparison is misleading.

Greenland has fifty-six thousand people. The UK has sixty-seven million. Greenland's economy is almost entirely fishing and hunting, with emerging mining. The UK has one of the world's largest and most complex economies, deeply integrated into European supply chains, financial systems, and regulatory frameworks.

Greenland left because one specific policy—fisheries management—was incompatible with its economic interests. The UK left for a tangle of reasons involving sovereignty, immigration, regulation, and national identity. The two situations are not comparable in scale, complexity, or motivation.

What Greenland does offer is proof that leaving the EU doesn't mean total rupture. The OCT relationship allows for continued trade, funding, and cooperation. But it's a relationship designed for small, resource-dependent territories, not major industrial economies.

The Inuit Dimension

One aspect of Greenland's relationship with Europe that often gets overlooked is the indigenous dimension. About ninety percent of Greenland's population is Inuit or of mixed Inuit-European descent. The political and economic questions aren't just about sovereignty in the abstract—they're about who controls resources on indigenous land.

When Greenland left the EU, it was partly an assertion of Inuit self-determination. The seal fur controversy, years later, highlighted the tension between European environmental values and indigenous economic practices. These aren't easy issues to resolve, and they don't fit neatly into the usual frameworks of EU law and trade policy.

Greenland's trajectory—from Danish colony to autonomous territory to possible independence—is part of a broader decolonization story. And that story shapes how Greenlanders think about Brussels, Copenhagen, and their own future.

The Organizational Ties

In 2000, Greenland joined the Overseas Countries and Territories Association, or OCTA, an organization founded in Brussels to improve economic development and cooperation between OCTs and the EU. It currently has thirteen members, including places like Aruba, New Caledonia, and the British Virgin Islands.

In 2008, OCTA signed a cooperation treaty with the EU, formalizing the relationship. And in 2012, Greenland's Prime Minister, Kuupik Kleist, held the chairmanship of the organization.

This is what Greenland's European relationship looks like in practice: not membership, but partnership. Not isolation, but selective engagement. Greenland participates in EU-funded programs, maintains trade ties, and keeps a representative office in Brussels. But it does so on its own terms, retaining control over the resources that matter most.

What Greenland Teaches Us

Greenland is a reminder that the European Union is not inevitable. It's a political choice, one that can be unmade. And it's a reminder that sovereignty has a price—sometimes literally, in the form of lost funding and market access.

But it also shows that leaving doesn't mean disappearing. Greenland has maintained a functional relationship with Europe for nearly forty years outside the EU. It receives funding, trades extensively, and participates in cooperative programs. Its citizens retain EU citizenship through their Danish nationality.

Whether Greenland will rejoin is an open question. Public opinion is shifting, the geopolitical stakes are rising, and the economic case for membership is stronger than it was in 1982. But the obstacle that drove Greenland out—the Common Fisheries Policy—remains unresolved.

And that's the essential tension: Greenland wants access to Europe, but not at the cost of control over its own waters. Until that circle can be squared, Greenland will likely remain what it is now—close to Europe, but not quite part of it. The only place that left, and stayed gone.