Pele Broberg is chairman of Naleraq and vice chairman of the Foreign and Security Policy Committee in Greenland’s Parliament (Inatsisartut). Source: Sermitsiaq, Oscar Scott Carl
Naleraq chairman Pele Broberg believes that Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen should stay home in Denmark when French President Emmanuel Macron visits Greenland on Sunday.
Mette, stay home. Greenland will probably talk to Macron itself on behalf of the country.
This is the message to Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen from Naleraq chairman Pele Broberg.
He believes that it is wrong for the Danish prime minister to participate when Greenland is visited by French President Emmanuel Macron.
She doesn’t need to, she should just stay home. If it was Denmark that the French president wanted to visit, he would have gone to Denmark and not Greenland, says Pele Broberg in a press release.
As the Kingdom is organized today, foreign and security policy are so-called national affairs. Therefore, a representative from the Danish state is always present when questions regarding these topics are on the agenda.
When Emmanuel Macron and Mette Frederiksen are scheduled to visit Greenland on Sunday and meet with the Chairman of the Greenland Government, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the three heads of government will, among other things, focus on security in the North Atlantic and the Arctic.
Pele Broberg, however, would like to see the meeting held without Danish participation:
Greenland will probably talk to world leaders who visit Greenland on behalf of the Kingdom. Stay home Mette, we don’t need Danish espionage in the talks, says Pele Broberg.
Not everyone is ready to cheer for the prime minister
When French President Emmanuel Macron and Mette Frederiksen land in Greenland on Sunday, not everyone is ready to cheer for the prime minister.
In fact, she is now being urged to stay home.
Spy-Mette?
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, chairman of the Greenlandic government, Naalakkersuisut, is hosting the visit, which will primarily deal with security in the North Atlantic and the Arctic, according to a press release from the Prime Minister’s Office about the visit.
But the visit would be significantly more appreciated by Broberg if Mette Frederiksen stayed far away. At the same time, he is sending something of an accusation in her direction.
In a text message to Ekstra Bladet, Broberg stands by his criticism. Here he writes that he is “sure that Mette, as Denmark’s Prime Minister, wants to go to Greenland to look after the interests of the state of Denmark”.
“Our Naalakkersuisut (the Greenlandic government) looks after Greenland’s interests,” he writes further.
“Even though I am the opposition leader, I feel the duty to remind Naalakkersuisut of their rights, so that the chairman of Naalakkersuisut’s lack of experience is not taken advantage of,” he writes finally, and he makes it clear that he has no “current plans to meet with either Mette, Macron or Trump for that matter”.
When asked whether he is generally afraid of Danish espionage, he writes:
“Not generally afraid of it, just used to it”.
Kicked out after ‘immigration’ comment
Broberg has made a name for himself in the debate on independence on several occasions.
The biggest splash in this regard, however, was probably an interview with Berlingske, which was published in the fall of 2021.
At that time, he was naalakkersuisoq - minister - for foreign affairs in Múte B. Egede’s government. And then he suggested that only people with an Inuit background should interfere in the debate on Greenlandic independence.
What you feel and think as an immigrant has no bearing on this referendum debate, he said, among other things.
This shocked many - both in Greenland and Denmark - and a few days later he was dismissed as a minister.
He currently sits in the Greenlandic parliament, Inatsisartut, after a very good election in March for both the party and himself. Here, the party ended up getting eight seats in parliament out of 31 total seats.
At the same time, Naleraq’s share of the vote more than doubled.
Naleraq is the only party in parliament that is outside the government collaboration.
Source:
- Sermitsiaq (in Danish)
- Ekstra Bladet (in Danish)