The nearest neighbours in the Arctic
When I first took my seat in Alþingi in the autumn of 2016, I had told the chair of my parliamentary group that I was not particularly seeking international assignments. Learning my way around Alþingi and Icelandic politics seemed more than enough. Fate had other plans. One of the first international assignments I was given was a seat on the Icelandic delegation to the West Nordic Council, the forum for parliamentarians from Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. I had never been to Greenland or the Faroe Islands, and I thought it might at least prove interesting.
That turned out to be an understatement. Almost a decade later, I am convinced that stronger West Nordic cooperation should become one of the cornerstones of Iceland’s Arctic policy. But that policy must not become a general declaration of closer cooperation that everyone agrees with and no one carries out. I propose two things.
First, Iceland should take a leading role in securing full and equal participation for Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland in formal Nordic cooperation, in both the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers, through the revision of the Helsinki Treaty that is now under way. Second, Iceland should conclude a trade agreement with Greenland within this parliamentary term. While Iceland keeps looking to Washington, Brussels and the Nordic capitals, it should also look closer to home.
I became President of the West Nordic Council in 2017. That same year the Council reached an important milestone when it was granted observer status in the Arctic Council. The West Nordic Council’s main argument was simple: people live there. The Arctic is not only sea ice, resources, shipping lanes, fish stocks, a strategic position or lines on a map. It is home to people who want to build good communities for themselves and their children. Sustainable development in the Arctic is therefore about more than protecting nature, important as that is. It is also about strong communities, jobs, education, healthcare, transport, telecommunications and people’s ability to use the resources of land and sea responsibly. And those who live in the Arctic should themselves have a strong voice when decisions are made about the region’s future. That thinking has stayed with me ever since.
The world changed, the geography did not
When Thorvald Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian foreign minister, delivered his report on Nordic cooperation in foreign and security policy in 2009, one of his proposals was devoted to the Arctic. When the proposals were reviewed 10 years later, the conclusion was striking. Cooperation had indeed grown, but mainly within the Arctic Council. If the Arctic Council ever stopped working, the authors of the review noted, there could be an opening for a separate Nordic initiative.
Only three years later, Russia invaded Ukraine and all political cooperation within the Arctic Council came to a halt. Finland and Sweden joined NATO, and seven of the eight Arctic states are now members of the Alliance. Russia has shown that it is prepared to disregard the sovereignty of a neighbouring state and the fundamental rules of international law. China has taken a growing interest in the region, and tensions have risen fast. The question the Stoltenberg review left open has therefore become pressing: the time for a separate Nordic initiative in the Arctic has come, and West Nordic cooperation should be at its core.
Geography explains why. During the Second World War, Britain took Iceland and the Faroe Islands, and the United States took over the defence of Greenland. None of this was accidental. The GIUK gap, the waters between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom, was and remains one of the most important defence areas in the North Atlantic. Björn Bjarnason put this simple fact well in his 2020 report to the Nordic foreign ministers: “The geography today is the same.” Politics shift, governments come and go, technology and threats change. Geography does not. The United States, the United Kingdom and NATO, which through Arctic Sentry has now brought its Arctic activity into a more coherent framework, all see a region in which Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands are of central importance. The three nations have every reason to do the same.
The United States has obvious and long-standing security interests in Greenland. That fact in no way justifies Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland or the way he talks about it. His rhetoric is inexcusable. Allies should not speak to one another like that. Cooperation between democracies rests not only on shared military interests but on trust, dialogue and respect for international law and the right of peoples to self-determination. Greenland is not an empty square on the great powers’ chessboard. It is home to people who should decide their own future, and decisions should be made with Greenlanders, not about them.
In the Icelandic debate, the European Union has sometimes come up in this context. The EEA Agreement has been enormously important to Iceland, and European states have stood firmly with Denmark and Greenland against Trump’s designs. But economic cooperation and collective defence must be distinguished. The EU is not a defence alliance, even though its treaty contains a mutual assistance clause. NATO is the defence framework Iceland has chosen, together with the 1951 Defence Agreement with the United States.
The first proposal: nothing about us without us
The Government of Greenland has adopted a simple but powerful guiding principle in foreign, security and defence policy: nothing about us without us. I have seen for myself how deep this demand runs.
At the Nordic Council session in Oslo in 2023, Múte B. Egede, then Premier of Greenland, gave a speech that stuck with me. He asked us to imagine a group of eight close friends who worked well together. But whenever something truly important happened, only five of them got to take part, and three were left behind. That, he said, was not a friendship between equals. “Venner skal ikke deles op i et A-hold og et B-hold,” he said. Friends should not be split into an A-team and a B-team.
A year later the disagreement became even more visible. When it became clear that Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland would not be invited to a meeting of the Nordic prime ministers, Múte B. Egede put his government’s political participation in Nordic cooperation on hold. Iceland held the presidency of the Nordic Council that year, and I was its President. The issue became one of the most important tasks of the presidency. With Vice-President Oddný Harðardóttir and the Council’s Secretary General, I travelled to Greenland for talks. At the Nordic Council session in Reykjavík that autumn, the Council unanimously called for a revision of the Helsinki Treaty, the founding agreement of formal Nordic cooperation.
At the 2025 session in Stockholm, the contradiction was still plain to see. Eight national flags flew outside the parliament building, and parliamentarians from all eight countries of the Nordic family sat in the chamber. But there were only seven governments. I asked Mette Frederiksen, Prime Minister of Denmark, when she thought the Helsinki Treaty could be amended and when we would have Greenlandic ministers back with us in the room. Her answer was clear: “Vi er i mine øjne otte lande, som udgør et Norden.” In her view, the Nordic region is eight countries.
In 2026 the Nordic ministers for cooperation decided to set up a committee to work on possible amendments to the treaty, with its proposals due before the Nordic Council session this autumn. Iceland should not sit back and wait for the outcome. We led on this during Iceland’s presidency and should keep leading by arguing clearly that the revision must end with full and equal participation for Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland in formal Nordic cooperation. No Nordic state is closer to Greenland and the Faroe Islands than Iceland, and none has a greater interest in its West Nordic neighbours sitting at the table as equals. This story matters far beyond the Nordic Council. It reflects a wider change in the Arctic: the region’s communities are demanding a more direct say in decisions about their own future. Here the three countries already stand on common ground. Greenland’s foreign policy places strong emphasis on Greenland having its own seat at the table. The Faroese Arctic policy of 2022 describes West Nordic cooperation as playing a unique role. Alþingi resolved as early as 2011, without a vote against, to strengthen cooperation with the Faroe Islands and Greenland to improve the prosperity and political weight of all three countries. In 2021 it went on to unanimously adopt an Arctic policy calling for closer trade and cooperation with our nearest neighbours in Greenland and the Faroe Islands. We have not lacked policies, reports or ideas. We have lacked action.
Measures that already work
Geographical proximity does not guarantee close ties. For that, people need to be able to travel between the countries, businesses need to be able to move goods and services, and communities need secure telecommunications links. The best examples of West Nordic cooperation in practice are exactly of this kind. Not new institutions or committees, but measures that make it easier for people to work together.
At the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavík in 2024, Icelandair signed cooperation agreements with Air Greenland and Atlantic Airways to connect the airlines’ route networks more closely. New airport construction in Greenland has already changed the picture considerably, and better air links create opportunities not only for tourism but for trade, research, education and healthcare. In tourism, the Vestnorden Travel Mart brings together companies from all three countries, which can offer a traveller who has come a long way two or even all three countries on the same trip. The Faroe Islands show what better connections can do, and the Faroese have spoken openly about having looked to Iceland’s experience, both what went well and the mistakes to avoid.
We also have a precedent for what a stronger trade framework can deliver. The Hoyvík Agreement with the Faroe Islands is the most comprehensive free trade agreement Iceland has concluded, and trade between the two countries has grown substantially since it entered into force. But the most interesting finding is not the growth itself. In his foreword to a 2021 report on relations between the two countries, Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, points out that trade agreements can be one of the strongest forces for increasing understanding between people, building trust and laying the foundation for cooperation in other areas. Trade is about more than money. It builds ties, drives demand for transport and telecommunications, and creates mutual interests that matter when it counts. We Icelanders have not forgotten that when our financial system collapsed in 2008, the Faroese were the first to offer us a helping hand.
The second proposal: a trade agreement with Greenland
That is why the second measure I propose is a trade agreement between Iceland and Greenland, to be concluded within this parliamentary term. The groundwork has been laid. A working group on cooperation between the two countries delivered a long list of proposals in 2020, the Norðurljós report proposed a modern framework for trade the following year, and in 2022 the Prime Minister of Iceland and the Premier of Greenland signed a broad joint declaration on cooperation in connection with the Arctic Circle in Reykjavík. In October 2025, Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir and Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Premier of Greenland, renewed the declaration and committed to speeding up work on a trade agreement. What is missing is not more reports but a deadline, because trade agreements are not only about the trade that already exists. They create the conditions for trade that would otherwise never have happened.
In our part of the world, such ties also have wider significance. Modern national security is not only about warships and radar but about telecommunications, ports, airports, energy, cybersecurity and submarine cables. Iceland and Greenland are literally connected by the Greenland Connect submarine cable, and Iceland and the Faroe Islands by Farice. These links carry the communications that financial systems, public administration and households rely on every day, and disruption to them can paralyse societies without a single shot being fired. Tellingly, the West Nordic Council adopted only two resolutions at its 2025 annual meeting, and both concerned security: one on cooperation between the three countries in that field, the other on protecting telecommunications infrastructure. Reliable trade, transport links and shared infrastructure strengthen the resilience of all three societies. This is where economic and security interests meet.
Looking closer to home
I have great faith in Nordic cooperation and believe the Nordic countries can carry even more weight internationally as a coordinated voice. But within that larger community there are smaller regions where geography and shared interests call for even closer cooperation. Those of us who live in the North Atlantic have particular interests. The ocean, fisheries, transport, telecommunications, energy and the location of our countries shape our societies. The story of the eight flags and the seven governments is a reminder that cooperation between equals does not happen by itself. It is built through action. Neither of the two proposals set out here, Icelandic leadership in revising the Helsinki Treaty and a trade agreement with Greenland within this parliamentary term, is large by the standards of international politics. But they are achievable, they come with a timeframe and they would make a real difference to the position of the West Nordic region.
We Icelanders should keep looking to Washington and Brussels and working closely with the Nordic capitals. But we should also look closer to home. To Greenland and the Faroe Islands.