Listhaug comes out with a clear message:

— "Erik the Red's Land is ours!"

The last Norwegian to assert sovereignty over Greenland was Vidkun Quisling.

By Alexander Söberg, published January 8th, 2025, 12:31 PM

In a highly publicized Tuesday press conference, party leader Sylvi Listhaug unveiled the Progress Party of Norway's new Arctic policy. Its key points: total withdrawal from the century-old Svalbard Treaty, under which the archipelago is a demilitarized visa-free zone; and a revival of Norway's claim over northeastern Greenland, a claim which was relinquished in 1933 following a ruling by the League of Nations' Permanent Court of International Justice, and later briefly revived during the Quisling regime.

— "Our country shouldn't need to be beholden to international law written in the days of the flappers. The conditions of the world are very different now, and we need to explore the possibility that Norway's Arctic policy is simply outdated," Listhaug said.

The Progress Party's vow to revive Norwegian claims over northeastern Greenland comes at a time of increased international focus on the island, as president-elect of the United States Donald Trump has repeated his interest in buying the island from Denmark, and has openly threatened use of economic sanctions and even military action to acquire the island if necessary, claiming that the island is vital for the security and prosperity of the United States. Denmark has in turn increased military spending on the island, a move described by the country's minister of defense Troels Lund Poulsen as an "irony of fate"; and Greenland's own prime minister Múte Bourup Egede has called for the island's full independence from Denmark to cast off the "shackles of colonialism".

The Progress Party of Norway's proposed extent of Erik the Red's Land is coterminous with the present-day Northeast Greenland National Park, compared with the much smaller extent of Erik the Red's Land from 1931-1933, and Quisling's much larger claim over the entirety of Greenland during the Second World War.

— "In the event of a US annexation of Greenland, we are amenable to administering the Northeast Greenland National Park as a condominium," Listhaug stated.

Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre (Labor) described the Progress Party's Arctic policy as an "atrocious disregard of sacrosanct international law"; Greenlandic prime minister Múte Bourup Egede in a post to X (formerly Twitter) expressed his disappointment in the Progress Party of Norway as well.

— "The Progress Party's vow to reclaim 'Erik the Red's Land' undermines the sovereignty and self-determination of the Greenlandic people. For a country like Norway, which fought for its own independence from Denmark like Greenland still fights today, this is not only unacceptable, but completely ridiculous," Egede said.

Although some commentators believe that the Progress Party sincerely intends to reassert sovereignty over Erik the Red's Land, in a context of global warming and Trump's questioning of Greenland's status quo, with the potential for resource extraction and a massive expansion of Norway's own territorial waters; other commentators believe that the Progress Party's new Arctic policy is simple "election theater" ahead of the September parliamentary election, with the claim to Erik the Red's Land being purely symbolic. Listhaug declined to comment on whether Norway would use military force to enforce a claim to Erik the Red's Land.

Public response to the Arctic policy has also been mixed. While some Norwegians have taken the move as a sign that the Progress Party and its voters are "losing touch with reality", as one anonymous X user wrote, many other Norwegians have proven to be surprisingly enthusiastic about the prospect of Norway expanding its territory. Within hours of the press conference, #ERLEV, short for "Eirik Raudes land er vårt" ["Erik the Red's Land is ours"], became a top-trending hashtag on X and TikTok in Norway.

2025 has proven to be "the year of the Progress Party", as the party has rapidly grown particularly among young men to become among Norway's largest, with a very real potential to become the country's absolute largest party. In the currently likely event of a right-wing victory in the coming Norwegian parliamentary election, the Progress Party intends to form a coalition with the Conservative Party.

The Progress Party has been the subject of much controversy due to its highly conservative, right-wing populist and anti-immigrant rhetoric, with "vote for the Progress Party" [in Norwegian, "stem Frp"] becoming a "dogwhistle" commonly commented by racists under TikTok videos posted by particularly Middle Eastern and African immigrants in Norway. Political commentators note that the Progress Party's new vow to revive Norwegian claims to Erik the Red's Land, when the last time such a revival of claims occurred was under Quisling, may be itself intended as a far-right dogwhistle.