Greenland and the Faroe Islands are reopening a sensitive constitutional and political debate on whether they should continue sending representatives to Denmark’s Folketing, as parties and candidates on both sides of the North Atlantic question whether the current model still fits the future of the Danish Realm.
Greenland election campaign revives the Folketing debate
The debate has resurfaced during the current Danish election campaign, with Naaja H. Nathanielsen, Greenland’s Minister for Business, Mineral Resources, Energy, Justice and Gender Equality (Naalakkersuisoq), saying she is no longer certain that Greenland should keep sending mandates to the Danish parliament.
Nathanielsen, who is also a Folketing candidate for Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA), said she would welcome a broader discussion on whether the relationship between Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark should be reorganised in a different institutional form. Her remarks reflect a wider political mood in Greenland, where several parties increasingly argue that the status quo inside the Rigsfællesskab — the Danish Realm — should be reconsidered.
According to Rasmus Leander Nielsen, associate professor at the University of Greenland (Ilisimatusarfik) and head of Nasiffik, the Greenlandic debate is no longer limited to one political camp. While the pro-independence party Naleraq has long pushed hardest against the current arrangement, he says there is now a broader consensus in Greenland on the need to rethink how the Realm functions.
What could replace the current representation model
Nathanielsen has floated the idea that Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark could work more directly parliament to parliament and government to government, rather than through the current system of North Atlantic representation in the Folketing.
One possible model, she suggested, would be a kind of Kingdom Council bringing together parliamentarians from the three parts of the Realm, in a format comparable to the West Nordic Council or the Nordic Council. In practice, that would mean elected politicians meeting to discuss common issues and then returning to their own legislatures with non-binding proposals.
For now, however, this remains a political idea rather than an institutional blueprint. Nielsen notes that there is no fully developed plan on the table and that several alternative models are conceivable. These could range from a more structured intergovernmental format, similar in some respects to ministerial coordination in the EU, to an expanded version of the bilateral and trilateral contact committees already used on foreign, defence and security matters.
Faroe Islands split over whether the seats are still legitimate
A parallel debate has also been unfolding in the Faroe Islands, where the issue gained visibility after the four North Atlantic mandates played an important role in Danish domestic politics during the controversy around Energy Minister Lars Aagaard.
That episode reignited a longstanding question: should Faroese and Greenlandic MPs help determine the outcome of Danish internal political disputes, especially in cases where they can become decisive votes?
Faroese MP Sjúrður Skaale of Javnaðarflokkurin argued last year that such influence felt politically and democratically problematic. In his view, the future architecture of the Realm may require moving away from the current Folketing arrangement.
But that position is not shared across the Faroese political spectrum. Anna Falkenberg of Sambandsflokkurin has defended the existing system, arguing that Faroese representation in the Folketing is a constitutional right and that the mandates are fully legitimate because they are elected on the same legal basis as the other members of parliament.
Why the issue is constitutionally sensitive
The debate is politically significant, but any actual change would be difficult.
Since the 1953 Danish Constitution, the Folketing has consisted of up to 179 members, including two elected in Greenland and two in the Faroe Islands. That means the North Atlantic mandates are not simply a political arrangement that can be suspended by ordinary decision during a campaign. Any formal change would require a broader constitutional or institutional settlement.
That legal reality explains why experts in both Greenland and the Faroe Islands describe the current discussion less as an imminent reform and more as a sign of deeper constitutional and political reconsideration across the Realm.
Security policy adds pressure to rethink the Realm
The argument is not only about democratic legitimacy in Copenhagen. In the Faroese debate, another concern is that the current arrangement can create asymmetries in access to sensitive information.
As Heini í Skorini of the University of the Faroe Islands notes, a Faroese MP sitting in the Folketing may gain privileged access to confidential briefings on foreign, defence and security policy, including information not available to elected politicians in the Faroese Løgting or Greenland’s Inatsisartut.
Critics of the current system argue that this creates an imbalance inside the Realm, especially at a time when Arctic security, military planning and relations with outside powers have become far more important. In that view, decisions on foreign and security policy should be anchored more clearly at the level of the governments and national parliaments of the territories themselves.
A constitutional debate with wider Nordic and Arctic implications
The renewed discussion over Folketing seats is therefore about more than parliamentary procedure. It touches on sovereignty, democratic legitimacy and the future shape of relations between Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
No immediate institutional break appears likely. But the fact that the issue is now being raised openly by leading politicians in Greenland and debated seriously in the Faroe Islands suggests that the Danish Realm is entering a new phase of constitutional reflection.
As Arctic geopolitics and security questions become more central, the pressure to redefine how the three parts of the Realm cooperate may continue to grow — whether through the Folketing, through new joint bodies, or through a more clearly intergovernmental framework.
