Greenland has once again been left without an international voice due to its membership of the Danish Kingdom, with the self-ruling administration unable to formally complain against the newly approved European Union ban on seal-product imports to the World Trade Organisation.

Greenland’s international affairs are still governed by Denmark and accordingly, as a member of the EU, Denmark is powerless to argue against EU rules at the WTO, because it is an EU member state, says the Greenland Foreign Ministry’s Christian Wennicke in a report by Sermitsiaq.

Not being an individual member of the EU means that Greenland now finds a repeat of the situation experienced during the recent whaling debate, where the self-rule state’s favourable policy towards expansion is subservient to Denmark’s agreement to the hard line approach issued by Brussels in relation to whaling.

The seal-product ban is set to take effect this August while both the Norwegian and Canadian governments have already lodged complaints last November with the World Trade Organisation over the EU proposal. No decision is expected to be made in relation to the complaints in the next two years.

The EU seal import ban can be partially circumvented through a stipulation allowing natively produced goods to be imported; but the Greenland administration argues that the ban will still impact negatively on all seal-related products, irrespective of origin.