Few regrets: Greenlanders used 'opt out' model when they qui
USING a Danish technique called the "opt out model" may be the best way for the UK to leave the European Union, said the man who helped Greenland out of the EU after a 53 per cent majority vote in 1982.
Former Danish Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, now 74, handled negotiations on Greenland after its 56,000 citizens elected to leave the EU in 1982. It took three years before an exit was accomplished.
Mr Ellemann-Jensen said Britain will need to find a solution that doesn't make life difficult for the remaining EU members, Mr Ellemann-Jensen said.
A pragmatic fix might be to copy the opt-out model, which in its case keeps it out of Europe's currency, defence and justice unions.
"The opt-outs have been a pain in the backside for Denmark, but have allowed the rest of the member states to move along without any obstacles," he said. "In the end, I believe that will be the most feasible solution that the British should hope for."
Greenland being a colony of Denmark took steps towards independence in 1979, and were granted home rule, a form of internal independence with foreign affairs left in Copenhagen's hands.
In 1973, Greenland joined the European Economic Community with Denmark. However, in a referendum in 1982, a 53 per cent majority voted to withdraw, not liking the EU's give-away of its fishing grounds, which supply 90 per cent of its exports.
Denmark's monarch remains the head of state, as is the case of Canada and Australia with the British monarch. Also Copenhagen still retains control of monetary policy, providing an annual block grant of DKK3.4 billion (US$5.1 million), which is to be phased out as the economy is strengthened by increased income from the extraction of natural resources.
Mr Ellemann-Jensen led the talks together with Greenland's business minister, Lars-Emil Johansen, who later became Greenland's premier.
Mr Johansen, 69, said the EU didn't give Greenland a timetable. "But we had to do a lot of waiting," he told Bloomberg.
Two years into Greenland's exit process, havoc broke out at home, he recalled.
The exit deal struck by his minority government "was under attack by a broad part of the population who thought we sold ourselves too cheaply on our fishing rights," he said.
But Mr Johansen's Siumut party was re-elected and the island left the EU the following year. Greenland's economy then expanded in the years following the exit, "proving doomsday prophets wrong", he said.
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