Greenland has voted. Around 5,6000 people scattered over more than 2 million square kilometers have become one of the most watched countries at election time. For the record, the outgoing coalition, consisting mainly of PM Egede's green nationalist Left and "indigenous" nationalists, were defeated. And the "social liberal" (conservative) driven nationalists came first, followed by the sovereignist nationalists. The Social Democrats, also nationalist social democrats, fared worst of all, perhaps because they ruled for years before Egede. In the end, no one has a majority of the 31 seats, and negotiations will begin immediately to form a government that, as we now know, remains under the Danish Crown (and with more than 30 percent of the budget financed by Denmark) but has, since 2008, registered greater autonomy than even the US or Argentine and Brazilian federal states. Greenland, which, unlike its "parent" Denmark, has been outside the EEC (now the EU) since 1995, has had enhanced autonomy since 2008, and has been working on its own constitution since 2017, which would be the final step to independence. All parties as we have said are pro-independence (with more or less gradual approaches) but also very "green" and in environmentalists of different sorts, given that Greenland lives mainly from fishing and environmental resources. 

What attracts the world?

For some time now the whole world has been watching Greenland because of the importance of rare earth elements and critical materials in the green transition and a future of renewable energy. The territory’s characteristics make up a physical morphology that encompasses all the eras of our planet, meaning that it has thus, more or less consciously, become a new land of gold.

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nd this is not new to Greenlanders. Indeed, consider that on all Scandinavian lands, geological studies have been ongoing for almost a century and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) has carried out surveys and drafted geological maps on all Nordic countries since 1888, with special regard to Denmark and Greenland, creating in 2013, the Center for Minerals and Materials (MiMa) that deals with mapping but also with the problems of export-import of minerals for Denmark and Greenland, as well as the reuse of critical materials. Every 3 years, GEUS publishes a specific report, but exceptionally, since 2024, it has begun to provide annual updates, and a few days ago announced the arrival of the 2025 update, which is now in great demand even in the foreign press (to the point that they have launched a special request "template").
 

 

Change in research method

In 2024, Denmark made its data available to the European Union CRM Act, based on the most recent comprehensive mapping completed and found in the 2021 report. Referring to all the “Nordic countries”, the report notes how monitoring and surveying, now also begun with drones, are limited in relation to the possibility of discovering deposits; and, with some exceptions, they are found concentrated especially on the coasts, hence in the mapping we see the Nordic countries surrounded by a kind of colored "crowns" (depending on the minerals) of mines and extraction sites. On Greenland, in particular, the deposits of certain critical minerals and many rare earth elements potentially amount to several million tons. That is, we are talking about "world-scale" deposits. However, these deposits not only have to be found and open to possible exploitation, but also require a supply chain of mining, processing and production of the finished metal that make it suitable for trading. Such infrastructure is currently deficient due to lack of investment and expertise in the field (at least of "pure" Greenlanders who are entrepreneurs in the industry). With the support of European funds, Denmark has done a lot in the past decade, but certainly less than the progress seen in Japan and Australia or Taiwan in the production chain, especially of chips, i.e. semiconductors for digital devices.

The commitment of the North

Then there is the fact that Denmark (with reluctant Greenland) and Finland and Sweden are Member States of the European Union, often critical of the dispersal of funds to Southern Europe, but very loyal to decisions taken and committed to the EU CRM Act.

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o is Norway, which is a privileged member, like the UK today, of the European space, which trades mostly with the 27 EU countries. Certainly, the US interest (which is only marginally inferior to China's) is very enticing, but it is also true that the European projects launched as a result of the CRM Act of March 2024 include the full participation of the Nordic countries, which have the problem of all 27 EU countries as well as the G7 Members of having to "re-cycle" the critical materials and rare earth elements that are today found in smartphones, in magnets, in certain areas of manufacturing that because of the green transition actually have more critical materials to recycle than they require in production. A wealth of productive industrial “waste” that would guarantee, by increasing the production of recycling systems, circular economy wealth for decades, considering the consumerism of the world's most industrialized countries. So, Greenland is at a crossroads. Any foreign power, China or the United States, can promise to enter into an agreement, and a rich one at that, but only the European Union with Denmark have projects in progress in which they are already equally involved. Of course, it is a more onerous path, but it is important to maintain a sense of perspective. That is why, for now, all the parties in Greenland agree on one thing: to work for independence. Whether soft or hard will not be decided only by the next coalition government, but perhaps also by the next 2025 update of the GEUS Reports.