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European Public Law, Volume 9, Issue 2 # Kluwer Law International, 2003 DENMARK The Position of Greenland and the Faroe Islands Within the Danish Realm Jùrgen Albñk Jensen* The Danish Realm consists of three separate parts ± Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The population of Denmark is a little more than five million, whereas the populations of Greenland and the Faroe Islands are about 50,000 each. This fact alone indicates that Denmark is the dominant part of the Realm. On the other hand, both Greenland and the Faroe Islands are separate entities with their own culture and language, and ± for Greenland ± also their own ethnic origin as part of the Inuit people. It is obvious that this situation involves a great potential for conflict, and, although it has been possible until now to adapt the relationship between the three parts of the Realm to the changing circumstances so that major conflicts have been avoided, there has in recent years been a growing feeling of national identity in the two small parts of the realm ± especially in the Faroe Islands. The purpose of this article is to explain the position of the Faroe Islands and Greenland within the Danish Realm from a legal perspective. In the first part of the article, I will look at the historic relationship between Denmark and the two other parts of the Realm. In the second part of the article, I will discuss the details of the present constitutional arrangement between the three parts of the Realm, which can be characterized as a form of home rule for Greenland and the Faroe Islands within a unitary state. In the final part of the article, I will discuss some of the constitutional problems that are connected with this arrangement, and the growing wish for full independence ± especially in the Faroe Islands. * University of Aarhus, Denmark. European Public Law, Volume 9, Issue 2 # Kluwer Law International, 2003. 170 RAPPORTS: DENMARK 171 The Historic RelationshipBetween Denmark and the Faroe Islands and Greenland The relationship between Denmark and the Faroe Islands and Greenland respectively has evolved quite differently. The Faroe Islands were recognized as an integral part of the Danish Realm from the very first Constitution in 1849, which meant that the islands were represented in Parliament and that the civic rights of the Constitution were directly applicable in the islands. Although formally an equal part of the Realm, there has always been a feeling ± probably somewhat justified ± in the Faroe Islands that Denmark was in reality a sort of colonial power in the sense that all major decisions concerning the islands were taken in Copenhagen. During the Second World War, the connection between Denmark and the Faroe Islands was interrupted by the German occupation of Denmark ± followed by the British occupation of the Faroe Islands. This meant that the islands could in this period manage their own affairs without interference from Copenhagen, and this experience led to a surge in the claim for independence for the islands. After a tied referendum in 1946 and hard negotiations between the Danish Government and the Faroese authorities, agreement was reached on the introduction of home rule for the islands in 1948. The 1948 Act on Home Rule for the Faroe Islands is still the basis for the relationship between Denmark and the Faroe Islands, even after the introduction of a new Danish Constitution in 1953 in which the special status for the Faroe Islands as agreed upon in 1948 is not mentioned at all. Whereas the Faroe Islands had thus been a formally equal part of the Danish Realm in the whole democratic period, the situation was quite different for Greenland. Up until 1953, Greenland was a Danish colony ± a situation which for several reasons had become unacceptable at that time. In the period up to the Second World War, the Danish Government had tried to isolate Greenland from foreign influence and had left the Greenlandic population to live more or less as they had lived traditionally for centuries. This policy had been pursued because the Danish Government thought that modern influences would corrupt the traditional patterns of the Greenlandic society ± the policy was thus the result of a paternalistic wish to preserve the `noble savages'. However, reality did not correspond to this idyllic picture as modern influence was in fact present in the form of, for example, diseases connected to poverty (tuberculosis etc.). The isolation of Greenland was broken abruptly by the German occupation of Denmark, which overnight severed the connection to the Danish authorities in Copenhagen. In 1941, the Danish ambassador to Washington ± without the agreement of the still functioning Danish Government ± signed an agreement with the US Government which gave the US permission to build military facilities in Greenland. This meant that a great number of US officials came to live in Greenland, and the Greenlandic population for the first time had more than sporadic contact with foreigners and experienced the commodities of modern life. After the end of the war, formal Danish sovereignty of Greenland was restored, 172 EUROPEAN PUBLIC LAW although US troops stayed in Greenland as a result of the 1941 agreement. The Danish Government soon realized that the pre-war status quo could not be reinstated, and after a visit by the Prime Minister in 1948 to Greenland, when he saw the dismal conditions of the ordinary Greenlandic population, a programme of modernization was begun with general political support. The Danish relationship to Greenland was also put under pressure from the United Nations, as the UN demanded that Denmark should report to its committee on colonies on the progress made in Greenland. When a new Danish Constitution was passed in 1953, it was therefore natural to make Greenland an integral part of the Danish Realm. This manifested itself in a new Article 1 of the Constitution, which declared that the Constitution applied to all parts of the Danish Realm, which meant that the various rights and guarantees of the Constitution now applied also in Greenland. It was specified in other Articles of the Constitution that Greenland was from that time represented in Parliament by two members (like the Faroe Islands). In the period following 1953, the programme of modernization in Greenland was continued and, particularly in the 1960s, development was rapid. The Greenlandic population was in effect transported from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century in less than twenty-five years. This, of course, created great problems, for example in increased levels of crime, alcohol consumption and suicide. At the same time, the development policy was a success in the sense that health improved dramatically, the level of education rose, and living conditions in general improved to make it possible for the Greenlandic population to have access to the goods that are ordinarily part of modern life. At the beginning of the 1970s, a surge in nationalistic feelings occurred ± primarily in the young, educated section of the Greenlandic population. This led to a home rule arrangement in 1979 very similar to the one that had been in force in connection with the Faroe Islands since 1948. The basis for the relationship between Denmark and the Faroe Islands and Greenland is thus on the one hand Article 1 of the Constitution, which states the unity of the Danish Realm, and on the other hand the two home rule Acts, which to a large extent give the non-Danish parts of the Realm a special position within the Realm. Before dealing with the obvious tensions laid down in these potentially conflicting sets of rules, I will in the following section of the article give an outline of the way that the two home rule arrangements are functioning. The Home Rule Arrangements for the Faroe Islands and Greenland in Practice The home rule arrangements for both the Faroe Islands and Greenland are the results of negotiations between the Danish Government and representatives of the Faroese and Greenlandic populations respectively. The arrangements have been established by the passing of ordinary statutes by the Danish Parliament. RAPPORTS: DENMARK 173 Contrary to the tradition of Danish legislation, both statutes are preceded by a preamble, which stress the special nature of these pieces of legislation. The text of the preamble inter alia states: In recognition of the special position that the Faroe Islands [Greenland] occupy within the Realm ± nationally, historically and geographically ± Parliament has in agreement with the decision of the Faroese Lagting [Parliament] [Landsting in Greenland] passed . the following Act concerning the constitutional position of the Faroe Islands [Greenland] within the Realm . The home rule Acts establish that the authorities in the two home rule areas shall consist of a democratically elected local Parliament and a local government subject to the rules of parliamentarism. However, what distinguishes the home rule arrangements from other forms of local government in Denmark is, in particular, the fact that a number of subject areas have been handed over to regulation by the Faroese (Greenlandic) authorities in the sense that these authorities have both legislative and administrative authority within these areas. The decisions of the local Parliaments in these areas are called home rule Acts and have the same legal effect as ordinary Danish Acts. The basic principle ± although somewhat modified in relation to Greenland ± for deciding which areas are considered to be subject to home rule is that the local authorities must finance these areas locally, and that areas can be transferred to home rule when the level of economic development makes it possible for the home rule authorities to appropriate the money needed for that area. Both the Faroese and Greenlandic economies are, however, supported by the Danish state by annual block grants ± the idea being that these grants shall be reduced when more areas are taken over by the home rule authorities.
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