Trump tests EU voice on Greenland

Quiet on Venezuela, firm on Greenland, Europe stands exposed for its selective defence of sovereignty

Europe swung from worrying reticence to a well-orchestrated response between the ‘capture’ of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and Donald Trump ratcheting up his claim over Greenland, as even dense snowstorms couldn’t hide the real intent of the American president bent on acquiring a piece of Europe at any cost.

It needed Left parties and rights activists to put up even a thin veil of resistance to compensate for the near-total absence of condemnation from European leaders over the ‘capture’ of Maduro and his wife in an unusual seizure that horrified the world. Demonstrators, mostly from Left-liberal organisations, hit the streets of several European cities to register their protest at the violation of international law by ‘kidnapping’ a president.

But European leaders sprang up in unison to counter Trump’s claim for Greenland, an icy but mineral-rich semi-autonomous territory under the Kingdom of Denmark. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen pulled no punches in iterating that everything stops “if the US chooses to militarily attack another NATO country”. This was a follow-up to her earlier assertion that the US “has no right to annex” Greenland.

Trump and his team have since intensified the demand for Greenland, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt citing options including “utilising the US military” to take over Greenland, leaving Europe in shock. European leaders immediately shed the hesitation that marked their response to the US military operation in Venezuela.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez joined Frederiksen to rule out any change in Greenland’s sovereignty.

"Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” they declared in a carefully-worded joint statement that didn’t name Trump. European citizens and policy experts had earlier slammed their meek response to the US action in Venezuela.

American public policy analyst and professor at Columbia University, Jeffrey Sachs, described the response of European leaders to the military operation in Venezuela as “absolutely pathetic”, a view that has since echoed in the region. There were none of those fiery words they rightfully used in slamming Russia and its President Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine that the Kremlin attributed to the eastward expansion of NATO.

From Merz’s carefully crafted words that a reaction to the US military intervention requires “careful consideration” due to the complexity in its legal assessment, to Meloni’s outright justification of the act as “defensive intervention”, Europe basically cowed down before the Trump administration’s controversial act in Venezuela.

The European Union had, in a statement issued on behalf of 26 member states minus Hungary, sought the proper application of international law and upholding the UN charter without explicitly contesting the ‘capture’ of Maduro, who is being tried by an American court for a cocaine-trafficking conspiracy.

German Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, who co-chairs the Centre-Left Social Democratic Party, a coalition partner of Merz’s Christian Democratic Union, stood out by terming the incident as “very worrying”. Although he contended that Maduro did lead an authoritarian regime, Klingbeil insisted “this (the action) cannot be a justification for disregarding international law”.

Germany’s opposition Green Party sniped at the Chancellor for his meek response. Citing the US intervention as a “violation of international law”, the Centre-Left party’s parliamentary leader Katharina Dröge warned Merz that “keeping a low profile is a disastrous strategy”.

Ties under strain

European leadership dropped all restraint when Trump pushed for Greenland, and White House hinted at a possible military option. Although not the first time, as US Vice President J D Vance last March had not ruled out a military operation to take control of Greenland, the timing was key as it came soon after the episode in Venezuela.

The EU states had come under tremendous pressure from Washington after Trump assumed charge for his second term in office. Trump’s call on European allies to hike their defence spending from 2 to 5% further strained US-EU ties. Germany was forced to ignore popular opinion to shed its post-World War II restraint as a defence-shy nation, largely dependent on American forces, to pump in billions of euros to modernise its military.

With the sole option in its toolkit being intense diplomacy, the EU now seems to be set for a bumpy phase in its historic ties with the US in light of Trump’s designs on Greenland, initially seen as a brazen boast.

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Berlin)