After the Conservative Party scored a major electoral victory in the UK, likely ensuring that Britain will secede from the European Union in 2020, it has been noted that the event bears remarkable similarities that mirror Greenland’s exit from the European Economic Community over three decades ago, the Daily Express reports.
While Greenland joined the organisation together with the Kingdom of Denmark in 1973, in 1982 the former held a referendum in which 53 percent voted to leave, with the withdrawal finally taking place in 1985.
As the newspaper points out, following the Brexit referendum of 2016, former Greenland Prime Minister Lars-Emil Johansen reminisced about how his country’s weathered a political storm over parting ways with Brussels, and about the economic growth that followed.
"It was a huge deal for domestic politics in Greenland. The doomsday prophets said that Greenland could never get an exit deal that would be as beneficial as the conditions under EEC membership," he said. "We had to do a lot of waiting."
He also recalled how following that move, the government ended up being toppled by a vote of no-confidence, but his party got reelected during the subsequent election, with the newspaper likening that development to Boris Johnson’s recent electoral triumph.
Another former prime minister of Greenland, Kuupik Kleist, also said during an interview with BBC that his country is doing just fine without the EU.
"We have regular meetings with the [European] Parliament, and the European Union is one of our international partners – an important partner, and important for trade. But at the moment, there's no serious consideration for rejoining the European Union," he remarked.
