Greenland as a New Stress Test for the EU

The ghosts of Greenland keep haunting the White House and are tormenting high-level officials in Brussels.  

First, the threat of a military invasion of the Danish island by the US Administration for reasons of national security. Second, the President's favorite instrument of coercion: the announcement of 10% tariffs for those Allied countries sending troops to the island. What does all this suggest about the EU’s role amid today’s renewed great power rivalry?  

While the island sits kilometers away from European soil, the implications of such actions have been shaking the old continent, divided between the fear of an increasingly unbalanced transatlantic alliance and the need for a stronger US defensive role.  

Although the image of American troops invading Greenland seems to be melting away, recent developments in the region have awakened policymakers in Brussels to the strategic importance of the Arctic, urging them to act.  

Speaking at the Arctic Frontiers conference on February 1st, the EU chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, publicly acknowledged the changing security landscape in the area. What was once regarded as a “terra nullius”, covered in ice and bound in isolation, has now become a contested space where melting ice shapes security interests and geopolitical ambitions.  

As the Arctic seems to be warming faster than other parts of the world, the international system must keep an eye on it. In this regard, the first step to navigate an ever-melting ice lies in the recognition of the region as evolving from a low-tension region to an arena of competing national interests, where both regional and external players are seeking to project their influence.  

Now more than ever, the logic of Arctic exceptionalism, which has long preserved the region from world geopolitical developments, seems to no longer apply. Now more than ever it is clear that what happens in the Arctic no longer stays in the Arctic.  

The turn taken by the international order that had governed the region for decades reflects a process that had already begun in the early 2000s. Geopolitical competition has been intensifying in the Arctic because of climate-related transformations.  

Rising temperatures, combined with the melting of the polar ice caps, have revolutionized the accessibility of the region, intensifying rivalry over the potential for resource exploitation and emerging shipping corridors. On this note, the planting of a Russian flag on the seabed of the Arctic Ocean back in 2007 warned about a more assertive behavior by Moscow in the area and paved the way for competition over natural resources in the region.  

Additionally, the Kremlin’s growing military build-up in northern Siberia, together with China’s expanding footprint (Beijing’s self-designation of China as a near-Arctic state in 2018), has altered the perception of the Arctic’s role and its strategic importance amid current power dynamics.  

As global players were silently moving deeper into the ice, the EU lingered on the sidelines. Despite initial efforts to acknowledge evolving regional dynamics - first with An Integrated European Union Policy for the Arctic in 2016 followed by the 2021 EU Arctic Policy - the Greenland test has once again revealed a lack of foresight by European leaders.  

As the rules-based international order slowly fades into global disorder and increasing instability, the EU mistakenly neglected its northern borders. The 2021 strategic document is now outdated, and its revision should have come earlier.  

With the war in Ukraine now in its fifth year, the second Trump term and the President’s ambitions regarding Greenland, the EU can no longer afford to stand aside and ignore a strategically important region like the Arctic. If the prospect of a deal announced in Davos offers a sign of relief and favors de-escalation amid strained US-EU relations, it also raises questions about the EU’s capacity to acknowledge future challenges and respond accordingly.   

Although security and defense remain mostly a responsibility of Member States and NATO is the primary actor for safeguarding the Euro-Atlantic area, the Greenland crisis reveals the limits of the EU's ability to be an influential power on the global scene, as repeatedly demonstrated by its tendency to accommodate the demands of more powerful players.