DR has profiled Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen, the Danish Foreign Ministry official who led the Kingdom of Denmark’s delegation in the Arctic security negotiations with the United States and Greenland.
The 63-year-old permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs handled the talks with Washington on behalf of Denmark and Greenland. The nine-page agreement was signed in New York on September 22. DR describes him as one of Europe’s most experienced negotiators of international treaties.
According to DR, Tranholm-Mikkelsen is unknown to most Danes and does not seek publicity. Every Danish prime minister from Poul Nyrup Rasmussen to Mette Frederiksen has turned to him for advice, the broadcaster reports.
What the agreement contains
The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs says the agreement strengthens defense and security cooperation in the Arctic and the North Atlantic. Reuters reports that it allows the United States to modernize and expand Pituffik Space Base. It also permits defense areas at Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig.
Per Reuters, the text grants wider US military access in Greenland, including overflight and landing rights and undersea access. The Associated Press adds that Greenland must remain in NATO and take over Denmark’s obligations if it becomes independent.
DR reports that the 1951 defense agreement did not address what would happen to Greenland’s security in the event of Greenlandic independence. The new text settles that question, according to the broadcaster. DR also notes that the agreement repeatedly ties the arrangements to NATO cooperation.
Reuters reports that the deal was intended to end months of tension caused by President Donald Trump’s threats to take control of Greenland, while stopping short of annexation. The Associated Press says it was signed on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and preserves Danish control.
Decades of treaty negotiations
DR reports that Tranholm-Mikkelsen took part in the Amsterdam Treaty talks as a young official in Brussels in the 1990s. He later worked in the Prime Minister’s Office on the EU’s eastward enlargement, which was concluded in Copenhagen in December 2002.
In 2015 he was appointed secretary-general of the Council of the European Union, a position he held during the Brexit process. According to DR, he and then European Council President Donald Tusk prepared a joint response among the 27 member states before the British referendum on June 23, 2016.
DR writes that the Greenland talks carried higher stakes than any earlier negotiation he has joined, because a breakdown could have led to armed conflict. Reuters reports that the agreement has no end date and requires parliamentary approval in both Greenland and Denmark before it enters into force.
