Anthropologist and researcher at the International Sciences Po Research Center, Pia Bailleul works, among other things, on the stake of minerals in Greenland. She explains how the mining question is linked to the construction of the Greenlandic state and the independence process compared to Denmark.
Have Donald Trump’s statements created a shock in Greenland?
The idea of buying Greenland is not taken seriously by the Greenlanders. They lived it as a mark of contempt, because Mr. Trump does not seem to consider them as a nation capable of self -determining. But this episode placed the Greenlanders on the map of the needs of the energy transition, which is not to displease them. This gives them the feeling of being a rich country, at the center of the new geostrategic game. During a press conference, the Groenlander Prime Minister Mute Egede clearly made it clear that he intended to take advantage, on the geopolitical scene, of Mr. Trump’s interest in the country’s natural resources.
Are the Greenlanders all favorable to the development of the mining industry?
It is the subject of a very large consensus in the population, because it can be a means of solving the problems of poverty and unemployment, of offering prospects for youth. But also to prepare independence. The interests of Americans in natural resources is therefore considered to be a good omen, provided that the legal safeguards posed by the country are respected.
Some 250 exploration companies are already working in Greenland. What are the country’s leaders on the part of the Americans?
These companies only explore: they each have only one office and some geologists. There is indeed today only one active mine, that which operates intermittently gold in Nalunaq, and a single seriously committed project, to extract, in Qaqortorsuaq, of the Anorthosite, used for the Rock wool insulation. Greenland is still considered a “border area”, as they say in industry jargon: a territory very rich in minerals, but which is not yet exploited. The economic and fiscal benefits of this activity are therefore still very low. To change scale, you will have to open mines. And, for that, attract foreign capital. We must therefore forge relationships of trust with countries where capital will come from.
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