Denmark disputes EU plans to freeze funds for Greenland The European Union may scale back its financial support for Greenland in 2014-20, despite the Danish territory’s significance as one of the few areas in the EU with rare-earth minerals.

Greenland, which enjoys substantial autonomy from Denmark, has carried out extensive surveys of its deposits of the globally sought-after minerals, which are essential to many electronic devices. There are no mines in Europe, and in only one other region in the EU – Nora Kärr in Sweden – is exploration as advanced as in Greenland.

Denmark is questioning the EU’s proposal to freeze its contribution to Greenland – at €184m over seven years – when the EU’s external budget, the budget that covers EU member states’ overseas territories, will rise by 3.4%.

It also believes that stopping funds would run counter to the EU’s growing interest in the Arctic, part of a global trend that has seen China court Greenland’s government for mining concessions. China already controls 85% of the global supply of rare earths.

In late October, Greenland overturned a ban on the mining of uranium, which often carries traces of rare-earth minerals. Aleqa Hammond, the prime minister of Greenland, said that the vote would boost the case for the territory, home to 57,000 people, to seek independence from Denmark.