- Greener with envy… - 28th January 2026
- Go Wynne - 27th January 2026
- Parallel lines - 26th January 2026
During 23 years with BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW), and 42 years in journalism (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), providing transparency over hush-hush political ‘deals’, has always been central, and nowhere is this better exemplified than in the supposed agreement over Greenland.
It has always seemed odd to me when politicians reach ‘secret’ or confused ‘deals’ which aren’t properly laid out before the public.
These politicos are, after all, paid and elected by us, so (I would have thought) voters have a right to know what is going on. We are shown this in spades with the apparent arrangement over the bizarre Greenland saga.
Even before the row over the island, showing this salient fact, there was the Labour – Plaid Cymru pact/coalition/co-operation agreement which ran between December 2021 and May 2024, keeping Welsh Labour in power.
There were fine-sounding, but nebulous-meaning words such as: “Today, as the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru come together in this Co-operation Agreement, we take another step forward in our collective effort to fulfill that promise of a new politics – radical in content and co-operative in approach“.
However there was little of real substance there, so Mrs Jones in Rhyl didn’t know how her taxes were being spent or who she’d voted for!
Then there was the Labour – Welsh Liberal Democrat pact/coalition/co-operation agreement, and some sort of alliance with Plaid Cymru (Plaid) many years before that, but which also kept Labour in power in Wales.
This meant that Carwyn Jones was able to remain as the head of the Welsh Government (WG), while the only Lib Dem AM, Kirsty Williams, joined the executive as Education Secretary.
Plaid did not join the WG, although it seemingly reached an ‘agreement’ with Labour whereby the two parties would coordinate in three areas: financial, legislative and constitutional.
The pact foresaw the implementation of a package of social measures, and further envisaged the creation of a ‘Welsh Development Bank’.
The two parties also “committed to working positively together… to secure a ‘Remain’ vote in the European referendum” (fat lot of good that did!).
But once again, Mrs Jones was left largely in the dark.
There is little light today either in this much-vaunted ‘deal’ over Greenland.
We don’t know who are the key participants, what was said in discussions, and, critically, what the terms are. Who will own Greenland – America, Denmark or someone else? Will America be allowed to station more troops there? What does it mean for NATO? We simply don’t know the answer to any of these crucial questions.
Donald Trump says he needs Greenland for America’s security, but how true is this, and did it play a major role in the negotiations?
Mr Trump had even threatened to impose tariffs on countries that did not “go along with Greenland because we need Greenland for national security”, which increased pressure on European allies who opposed his effort to take it over.
In response the leaders of Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK warned in a joint statement that Mr Trump’s plan risked a “dangerous downward spiral”.
“No intimidation nor threat will influence us”, thundered Emmanuel Macron, the French president.
From Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish Prime Minister, to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission (EC), politicians have been indignant at America’s latest bullying over tariffs.
The prospect of a nominal ally using economic pressure (along with other methods) to seize another NATO member’s sovereign territory left European leaders frantically seeking a coherent response.
Earlier, Mr Trump’s special envoy to Greenland had said a deal for Washington to own the island “should and will be made”, but there has also been a US congressional delegation which visited Copenhagen in a show of support for Denmark and Greenland.
Jeff Landry said he planned to visit Greenland in March and that the US president “is serious” about acquiring it.
Katie Miller, wife to the President’s influential adviser Stephen Miller, posted a map of Greenland overlaid with the star-spangled banner and a caption reading: ‘SOON’, and a day later, Mr Miller himself also weighed in.
During an interview with CNN he said that “For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States”.
The security concern may, on the face of it, appear plausible because Greenland is on the way to Russia and China (if you go in one direction), but is in fact WRONG.
Under the terms of an agreement signed with Denmark in 1951, America may in effect station as many troops as it likes on the island.
After the cold war America shrank what had been a substantial deployment to what is now fewer than 200 troops at a single base on the island’s north-west, used for space surveillance and early-warning radar, these paltry numbers, though, could easily be ramped up.
Broader security worries seem overdone, too, because Greenland (a self-governing part of Denmark) also sits under NATO’s security umbrella.
“There’s not really a security case for a NATO (of which America is a member) mission in Greenlandic waters”, says Andreas Østhagen, an Arctic specialist at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI) in Oslo.
Evidence is scant, as well, supporting Mr Trump’s contentious announcement that the island’s seas are “covered with Russian and Chinese ships”, and the Danes have largely seen off Chinese interest in investing in Greenland.
Experts say the more pressing Arctic issues actually lie elsewhere, especially around Alaska – which is, of course, part of America so wouldn’t need to be invaded at all!
So how has all this been sorted out in the opaque ‘transaction’?
Mrs Jones in Rhyl deserves to know!
Phil’s memories of his extraordinary award-winning career in journalism (including stories like these where secret ‘deals’ between politicians were disclosed) as he was gripped by the incurable disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
