The following is a brief description of the announced bill which is mainly a repeat of the current Act on Mineral Resources but with a number of additional new rules.
The Greenland Self Government Act was adopted on 19 May 2009 and came into force on 21 June 2009.
The Self Government Act clearly states that the Government of Greenland can take over the area of mineral resources, and that the Government of Greenland is the legislative and executive authority within the area of mineral resources. This means that the current Joint Committee with members from Denmark and Greenland will be abolished.
Consequently, the purpose of the current draft bill is to create the legal basis for the takeover of the area by the Government. The Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum will still be the administrative authority for mineral resources and will function as exclusive administration body and will carry out the entire regulatory process. Up until now the Bureau's regulatory process has been based on a so-called one-door principle meaning that a business could contact the Bureau which would then handle the regulatory processing.