Danish researcher Astrid Nonbo Andersen says reconciliation between Denmark and Greenland will take generations, and she warns against treating a planned commission as a project with a fixed end date.
Nonbo Andersen, who works at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), gave the assessment in an interview published on September 8 by Dagbladet Information. She specializes in truth and reconciliation commissions in Norway, Sweden and Finland.
She points to a clear shift in tone in Copenhagen. In August 2013, then prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt rejected a commission proposed by Greenland’s premier Aleqa Hammond. On August 28, 2026, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the idea a good one.
The current proposal came from Greenland’s premier, Jens-Frederik Nielsen of Demokraatit, after the publication of two reports on the spiral case. According to KNR, Naalakkersuisut presented the two expert reports on August 28 and invited Denmark to take part. Nielsen said the aim was to uncover the truth rather than assign blame.
In a written statement the same day, Frederiksen said it is never too late to do the right thing. Per Information, the four-party government’s platform from June 2026 also commits to working for a commission. That work is to await the completion of a historical review of relations between Denmark and Greenland.
Lessons from Norway and Sweden
Nonbo Andersen says Norway has come furthest, without reaching its goal. The Storting set up a commission in 2018, and its report was delivered in 2023. Parliament’s control and constitution committee then spent eight months traveling the country to study how the conclusions could become law.
In November 2024 the Storting adopted 17 legislative proposals, according to the parliament’s own record of decisions. One of them was an official apology to the Sami, issued in 2024, covering the consequences of the Norwegianization policy for Sami, Kven and Forest Finns.
Sweden took a different route with two separate commissions, she says. The commission for Tornedalians and related minorities finished in 2023, and the report on the Sami people is pending. Unlike in Norway, the Swedish government is not bound by what the reviews conclude.
The Danish-Greenlandic historical review is to cover the period from the Second World War until today. Greenland was a colony until the constitutional change of 1953, which later shaped debates over Greenland’s autonomy. Nonbo Andersen says few people will read a review of 700 pages or more.
She says the knowledge must be translated into concrete action, and that institutions in education, health care, policing and culture could contribute. Recognizing that abuses took place, and that Greenlanders still face discrimination, will be an unavoidable part of the process, she says.
Asked whether reconciliation is possible at all, Nonbo Andersen says she has no doubt that it is. She expects the process to be difficult and at times painful, and says history cannot be undone.
