Fiscal readiness for sovereignty.

Since the Self-Government Act of 2009 recognized Greenlandic self-determination, the debate has moved beyond political legitimacy alone. The harder question is whether the fiscal and administrative base can sustain full responsibility.

A credible path to sovereignty therefore requires quantified transition planning. Constitutional language and political consensus are not enough without a working model for revenue, expenditure, staffing, and institutional delivery.

This is the research gap the economy track addresses: putting cost structure and financing realism alongside the political argument.

The economic challenge is not abstract. Greenland would need to replace external transfers, finance the remaining policy areas, and support the institutions expected of a sovereign state while preserving public services at an acceptable standard.

If the current welfare model and governance structure are held broadly constant, the required increase in domestic financing is substantial. That makes revenue growth, expenditure discipline, and sequencing central to any serious independence strategy.

In practice, the independence question becomes a fiscal responsibility question: what can be funded domestically, on what timeline, and under which reforms.

The current constitutional framework leaves national security, currency, foreign affairs, higher courts, and related sovereign functions with Denmark. A sovereign Greenland would need an operating model for each of these areas.

That means the economic issue is not limited to the remaining 31 policy areas under self-government. It also includes institutions that only become Greenland's direct responsibility under sovereignty.

Any realistic plan must therefore specify the services, facilities, staffing, procurement model, and financing path required to operate those functions.

This analysis combines the Greenland self-government framework, the March 2023 draft constitution, and market-based cost assumptions for institutions normally expected of a sovereign state.

It distinguishes one-time establishment costs from annual operating costs, and it compares lease and purchase assumptions where the delivery model materially changes the fiscal burden.

The result is a decision frame rather than a slogan: what must be built, what it likely costs, and which financing pressures appear first.

The figures below focus on institutions that sovereignty would add to Greenland's direct responsibility. They are presented as working ranges rather than a single headline number because the procurement model changes the economics materially.

The lease model lowers the initial capital threshold. The purchase model reduces annual run-rate pressure, but only by demanding far larger up-front financing.

Borrowing may be part of a transition strategy because establishment costs are too large to absorb immediately through current revenues alone. But debt only works if lenders believe the revenue base and expenditure controls are durable.

Within the working assumptions here, the annual cost range associated with the sovereignty package reaches roughly USD 75.00M - 142.12M, or approximately DKK 517.5M - 981.63M when broader financing assumptions are included.

Debt therefore does not remove the problem. It shifts timing and increases the importance of a credible fiscal plan, institutional capacity, and realistic repayment assumptions.

Denmark's National Bank has already pointed to the structural challenge: fiscal policy is not sustainable over the long term if current tax rules and expenditure growth remain unchanged.

Demographic change, infrastructure needs, and the rising cost of public services all increase pressure on the budget. Those pressures arrive before a sovereignty package is even layered on top.

That leaves only a limited set of serious options: stronger GDP growth, lower public expenditure, better sequencing of commitments, and potentially higher revenue collection in a system that is already heavily taxed.

Without reform, the long-run fiscal gap widens materially. The independence debate therefore needs to be connected directly to economic expansion and expenditure reform, not treated as a separate political track.

In GPS-I, proximity to independence is not measured by rhetorical commitment alone. It is measured by the capacity to expand domestic income and absorb the operating burden of sovereignty.

The 2024 central government budget illustrates the gap clearly: expenditures materially exceed domestically generated income, with a large share still funded externally. That fiscal structure is incompatible with a credible sovereignty timetable unless it changes.

On this axis, a serious political program is also an economic program. It needs quantified growth, sequencing, and trade-offs rather than only constitutional ambition.