Emmanuel Macron’s long-time commitment to so-called ‘European sovereignty’—which, of course, does not mean the sovereignty of individual member states, the only kind of sovereignty that exists in relation to the EU—has seen him mull sending troops to Greenland.
French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot revealed on national radio this week that Paris had “started discussing” with Copenhagen the possibility of deploying troops to the Danish territory in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeatedly stated desire to acquire it. Barrot added that it was not “Denmark’s wish” to proceed with the idea, but
If Denmark calls for help, France will be there. The European borders are sovereign whether it’s north, south, east, and west … nobody can allow themselves to mess around with our borders.
It is worth noting that despite this talk of ‘EU sovereignty’ and protection of borders, Brussels persistently allows the bloc’s borders to be ‘messed around with’ and undermines the actual sovereignty of its members that try to do something about it.
Political commentator Dr. Cristina Vanberghen attacked this “pure escalation” from France, calling on leaders not to “throw fuel on the fire.”
A new poll suggests that only six percent of Greenlanders want their island to become a part of the U.S., but as many as 43% view Trump’s interest as an opportunity—as one ‘influencer,’ Qupanuk Olsen, told Euractiv, to “[speed] up our country’s independence by 100 times.” Greenland’s prime minister Múte Egede also stressed earlier this month that “we don’t want to be Danes. We don’t want to be Americans. We want to be Greenlanders.”
Barrot’s later insistence that he doesn’t believe the U.S. will invade Greenland—that “it won’t happen, people don’t invade EU territories”—shows that comments from French officials amount to little more than rhetorical grandstanding, anyway.
