Denmark inches towards ratifying US defense deal despite Greenland dispute
COPENHAGEN, April 11 (Reuters) – Denmark's parliament on Friday took an important step towards ratifying a defense cooperation deal with the United States that expands the U.S. military's rights in the Nordic country despite a diplomatic dispute over Greenland.
Recent opinion polls have shown significant opposition among Danes to the 10-year pact that, if ratified, would grant the U.S. military broad access to station troops and store equipment on Danish soil.
President Donald Trump's insistence that the United States take over Greenland, a semi-autonomous Danish territory, for security reasons has soured relations between the two traditionally close NATO allies.
The Danish and Greenland governments have ruled out yielding the huge resource-rich Arctic island to U.S. control.
But despite the dispute, the Danish government, which signed the bilateral cooperation deal in 2023, when Joe Biden was president, has said it is critical to bolstering Denmark's defenses at a time when Russia is regarded as an increasing threat to Europe due to its three-year-old war in Ukraine.
On Friday, the Danish parliament held the first of three readings of the bill before a final vote expected by the end of June.
A lawmaker representing Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's Social Democratic Party defended the deal.
"It would be decidedly unwise to push the United States away by throwing the most important defense agreement in many years straight into the bin," Simon Kollerup said.
"The reality is that we have built the defense of Europe on our NATO membership," Frederiksen said in a similar message on Tuesday. "We want to hold on to that."
The left-wing Alternative and Red-Green Alliance parties have indicated their opposition to the deal, although it is expected to pass thanks to support for the minority government's proposal from several other opposition parties.
The deal does not cover Greenland itself, where the U.S. already enjoys wide access through a 1950s defense pact, or the Faroe Islands, another Danish territory in the North Atlantic.
Finland, Sweden and Norway have also signed bilateral defense pacts with the United States in recent years.