![\"US](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/c016d0c0-dc3e-40d4-856c-133c4756860b.jpg\")
JD Vance, vice-president to President Trump, at a US space base in Greenland last yearJIM WATSON\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
A large majority of the 57,000 Greenlanders share an ambition to ultimately break away from Denmark but that goal has receded as a result of Trump\u2019s threats, according to diplomats from across the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Faroes, with a population of 55,000, have a stronger economic basis for independence than Greenland but have traditionally been more ambivalent about a full-scale divorce.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That is changing as even the territory\u2019s Unionist party, which forms part of the new Faroese coalition government, has agreed to pursue a \u201ccompletely new model\u201d for relations with Denmark.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Officials say consensus is building for a first step under which Greenland, the Faroes and the Aland Islands, a mostly autonomous and Swedish-speaking region within Finland, would gain \u201cequal participation\u201d with the other countries in the Nordic Council, the region\u2019s joint political forum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A commission of diplomats from each of the five Nordic states and the three territories started work on the practicalities in mid-April.<\/p>\n
On paper, this would be a relatively modest procedural update, giving the Greenlanders, Faroese and Alanders national delegations of their own instead of them forming part of the Danish and Finnish blocs, as they do at present.<\/p>\n
\t\tInside Greenland: How do they really feel about Trump\u2019s threats?<\/p>\n
However, one Faroese official said the symbolism of their country presenting itself to the world on an equal footing with the other Nordic states would mark an important shift and a stepping stone to national representation in other multilateral bodies, including the Olympic Games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ville Vayrynen, a centre-right Finnish MP who is also president of the Nordic Council, said the outbreak of geopolitical turmoil in what had historically been a \u201clow-tension\u201d region had galvanised co-operation between the \u201ceight countries\u201d.<\/p>\n
The bigger prize for Greenland and the Faroes is an overhaul of their constitutional place within Denmark.<\/p>\n
Diplomatic sources said the Faroese had put out feelers to Copenhagen in recent months but the talks had not really taken off and were effectively frozen as Denmark goes through the longest limbo of coalition negotiations on record after its election in March.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Heini i Skorini, an international relations scholar at the University of the Faroe Islands, said the independence question had temporarily been put on hold but the territory\u2019s political parties, including the Unionists, were unanimously frustrated with the present arrangement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4ca50ba7-9973-48fe-a7d7-8aaa9b56050d.jpg\")
Donald Trump Jr visited Greenland in January last yearEMIL STACH\/RITZAU SCANPIX\/REUTERS<\/p>\n
The Unionists \u201chave again and again emphasised that we are not satisfied with the status quo and wish for more inclusion and more competencies when it comes to foreign affairs, including independent membership in various international organisations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said it seemed increasingly likely that there would be a new grand bargain.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to find new procedures and new things to devolve without in a sense changing the basic relation,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of the things that Greenland and the Faroe Islands want to be able to do, it\u2019s very difficult to do that without being formally a state.\u201d<\/p>\n
One much-discussed model would be a so-called compact of free association. This would involve Greenland and the Faroes becoming fully independent with Denmark\u2019s consent but also ceding to the Danes preferential rights over issues such as military deployments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The US has similar deals with several South Pacific island states and has contemplated offering Greenland a pact along these lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other options include the status that Iceland enjoyed from 1918 to 1944, as an independent state freely associated in a personal union with the King of Denmark; and the arrangement that the Cook Islands have with New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Yet Pram Gad added: \u201cIt\u2019s a very delicate moment to do this, because Trump is eyeing Greenland and if there is a crack or a reshuffling of the constitutional relations, that will be an opportunity for Trump to intervene, so it would have been wiser to do this five or ten years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Behind the facade of Nordic comity, there is also a certain amount of exasperation. Some officials question whether Greenland has enough state capacity to take on any more international duties, noting that its government has sometimes appeared overwhelmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Others are frustrated that the intra-Nordic reforms are not more sweeping and ambitious at a time when the region\u2019s delicate diplomatic system has been so abruptly upset.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The old Cold War model of \u201cNordic balance\u201d, a studiously undramatic patchwork of Nato members, neutrals and overlapping trade blocs, has been cast aside over the past four years. Sweden and Finland have entered the military alliance, Iceland has announced a referendum on applying to join the European Union and Norway has also tilted towards EU membership.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the first time, there is a serious prospect of all five countries being united under both the EU and Nato, where they could collectively wield considerable clout. Many figures would like to see the Nordic states pool more of their thinking, especially on defence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kristina Hafoss, the Nordic Council\u2019s Faroese secretary-general, said her institution was \u201cnot happy\u201d that the proposals to update its operating system, known as the Helsinki treaty, were so limited in scope.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greenland is moving towards recognition as a largely sovereign country within Denmark, spurred by President Trump\u2019s attempts to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[43],"class_list":{"0":"post-78728","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-faroe-islands","8":"tag-faroe-islands"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116546246346404123","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}