How will Trump respond to Greenlandic ‘no’?

How will Trump take ‘go away’ message over Greenland?

Donald Trump is not going to stop saying he wants to take control of Greenland. This week saw a new pledge to annex, buy, seize – pick your own term – the autonomous Arctic territory.

Greenland and Denmark’s leaders have tried various ways of communicating with the unpredictable and vindictive US president, including being complimentary over any common ground available, as well as avoiding any wording that could escalate a dispute.

Mute B. Egede, the prime minister of Greenland who is set to leave the post in the near future after losing an election in the territory this week, has repeatedly stated that Greenlanders only want to be Greenlandic – not American or Danish.

That appears to be backed up by a poll in which over 80 percent said they did not want to be absorbed by the US, as well as the strong support for pro-independence parties in this week’s election.

Yet Trump will not go away, and again said this week that he expects the US to take control of Greenland.

This appears to have elicited a new approach from Egede, adopting harder language that Trump might take more notice of – although how he responds is another question.

“This time we need to toughen our rejection of Trump. People cannot continue to disrespect us,” Egede wrote on Facebook.

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“The American president has once again evoked the idea of annexing us. I absolutely cannot accept that,” he wrote.

READ ALSO: Greenlandic PM says Trump ‘has not shown respect’

Perhaps the fact that Egede is on his way out of the Greenlandic government means there is less at stake for him politically, so he can speak more directly.

Comments from Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who has previously taken a less accommodating tone towards Trump than other senior Danish government figures, also suggest that neither Copenhagen nor Nuuk want to appease Trump on this issue any longer.

“If you look at the NATO treaty, the UN charter or international law, Greenland is not open to annexation,” Løkke told reporters.

“I feel that Trump talks about this issue in many different ways, depending on who is asking. Yesterday, a journalist asked about annexation,” he also said.

“Then we get reactions like this, which, at the core, probably reveal an American intention that we cannot fulfil,” the Danish foreign minister said.

The language could not be much clearer at this point, without explicitly telling Trump to go away. The question Greenlanders and Danes might be asking is, what form is Trump’s own rhetoric going to take next?

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Why your digital parking fine might be illegal

Many Danish car parks have gone digital in recent years and no longer have attendants. 

This means that parking fines are sent to motorists electronically, landing in your secure digital mailbox instead of the traditional ticket under the windscreen wiper.  

But this practice is illegal according to motorists’ organisation FDM.  

Digital fines which are sent to the driver after they have left the car park violate parking regulations, the group argues.

“The rules are very clear: The fine must be placed on the windscreen or handed to the driver. The parking companies’ model, where entry and exit registration is used to issue a fine instead of placing it on the car, is in our view only for the benefit of the parking companies and their profits,” Dennis Lange, chief consultant at FDM, said in a statement. 

FDM says that the digital model denies drivers the opportunity to dispute a fine for alleged illegal parking.  

The complaints board which handles disputes between motorists and private parking companies, Parkeringsklagenævnet, does not appear to agree with FDM, however, because drivers who have appealed against digital fines have not won their cases according to the organisation.

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READ ALSO: How do you appeal against a parking fine in Denmark?

The parking complaints board has been summoned to the Ministry of Transport to clarify the situation, news wire Ritzau reported this week.

“The rules are clear, and I believe it is only fair that when you park, you have the chance to respond to a fine on the spot rather than receiving it days later,” Transport Minister Thomas Danielsen said in a statement to Ritzau, appearing to back the FDM position.

“How parking companies ensure this in practice is up to them, and I am open to discussing any technical solutions,” he added. 

Denmark’s Consumer Ombudsman reminded several private parking companies about the rules last year in response to complaints from motorists, according to FDM.  

The ombudsman said that parking fines in private car parks must be placed visibly on the vehicle or handed directly to the driver.  

An interest organisation for parking companies was yet to comment on the matter as of Friday.