Correspondence Dan Alexe // EU summit devoted to defence... to deter Trump
Having initially caused a stir, US President Donald Trump's shockingly provocative plan to acquire Greenland—potentially by force—has sparked frantic discussions among European leaders seeking to stop it. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen rushed between Berlin, Brussels, and Paris on Tuesday to seek support in the face of Trump's increasingly aggressive advances on the autonomous territory. Trump and Frederiksen clashed in a tense 45-minute phone call two weeks ago, when it became clear to the head of the Danish government that Trump was extremely serious.
EU leaders will meet on Monday, February 3, in Brussels, in their first informal summit since Donald Trump's inauguration, with the UK Labour Prime Minister Keir Starter and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also invited to this summit dedicated to European security.
EU and NATO leaders are moving forward cautiously, as two members of both organizations, Hungary and Slovakia, are seen as Putin sympathizers, or at least their leaders, but at the same time - a position that is becoming increasingly worrying—sympathizers of Donald Trump.
Trump said it was a matter of vital national security for the U.S. to gain control of Greenland, a self-governing Arctic territory that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a founding member of NATO. Since Denmark is an EU member state, Greenlanders are citizens of the European Union.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said her talks with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin went "extremely well. It is "absolutely essential" that Europe "is united" on Greenland, she said.
"I don't travel giving speeches. I don't need to," Frederiksen said. But I am protecting Denmark's interests, and I am doing it very firmly now."
She added, "There must be respect for the territory and the sovereignty of states. This is a crucial cornerstone of the international world order we built after World War II."
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, for his part, reinforced the idea: "The inviolability of borders is a fundamental principle of international law," Scholz said. "Russia has violated this principle with its invasion of Ukraine, thus endangering peace in Europe. This principle must apply to everyone!"
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will attend Monday's meeting in Brussels as London and the EU seek closer cooperation on defense and security. The strategy in Europe and Britain so far has been to ignore Trump's gesticulations and rhetoric and focus on what he is actually doing.
"We can't spend the next four years reacting to Trump's every tweet," said a European diplomat.
However, it is shocking for public opinion on the "Old Continent" that at a time when it was believed that the greatest danger, even the only one of a political-military nature in Europe comes from Russia, to discuss sending European peacekeepers not to Ukraine, but... in Greenland, to show Trump that it is a European territory.
