Icebergs are photographed from the window of an airplane carrying NASA scientists as they fly on a mission to track melting ice in eastern Greenland on Aug. 14, 2019.
Mstyslav Chernov/AP
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Mstyslav Chernov/AP
NUUK, Greenland — Greenland’s parliament passed a bill Tuesday that bans political parties from receiving contributions “from foreign or anonymous contributors” after President Donald Trump expressed his wish that the United States take over the vast and mineral-rich Arctic island that belongs to Denmark.
The bill is aimed at protecting “Greenland’s political integrity” and will take effect immediately, according to a translation of a parliamentary document in Danish outlining the measure.
The bill “must be seen in light of the geopolitical interests in Greenland and the current situation where representatives of an allied great power have expressed interest in taking over and controlling Greenland,” the document said.
Before taking office for his second term on Jan. 20, Trump said he would not rule out the use of military force to seize control of Greenland, calling it vital to U.S. national security. His oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., visited Greenland last month and told citizens: “We’re going to treat you well.”
Denmark is a longtime U.S. ally and a founding member of NATO, and its semiautonomous territory is home to a large U.S. military base.
With a total area of 2.17 million square kilometers (836,000 square miles), Greenland — population about 57,000 — is over one-fifth the size of the United States, according to the CIA World Factbook.
A senior legal officer at Greenland’s parliament, Kent Fridberg, told The Associated Press he did not know whether any foreign donors had contributed to Greenland’s political parties and the idea for the bill was “basically a preventative measure.”
Fridberg noted that some Russian politicians had voiced a similar interest — and that political parties in Greenland are generally funded by public means.
The new measure also prohibits any single party from receiving domestic private contributions that exceed 200,000 Danish kroner (about $27,700) in total, or 20,000 kroner (about $2,770) from a single contributor.
