Unity? Bulgaria doesn’t care about Greenland, Spain doesn’t care about Estonia

Europe’s leadership, particularly western and north-central Europeans, made two arguments when faced with President Donald Trump’s move to annex Greenland: That, whatever NATO’s Mark Rutte says,  the United States cannot coerce Denmark to give up control of Greenland, and that NATO must remain united at all costs. If the United States were not a member of NATO – or more importantly, if it were not the main NATO contributor – these two arguments would not be mutually exclusive. But as America is the main contributor, the dual arguments put European leaders in a bind.

Being in NATO means being defended by America (no one is desperate to be defended by Spain). This is why Ukraine wishes to be in NATO so badly and is why the Baltics joined NATO before they joined the European Union. What President Trump’s threat has forced them to consider, therefore, is determine what they value more: Being defended by America, or keeping Greenland under Danish control.

On the surface, it seems like Europe has managed to answer both of these questions without issue. A statement put out by the nations who were in danger of being tariffed by Trump over Greenland was supported by various other European Union member states. But the “support” – mostly just confined to retweets – was telling.

For years now, Brussels has been trying to sell their people and the world on the notion that there is some sort of European “national interest,” so to speak. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen dedicated her recent Davos speech to “European independence,” arguing that now is the time to “build a new independent Europe.” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Europe has “a slate of tools to protect its interests” regarding Greenland.

The issue is that “Europe,” in this sense, does not exist.

In the unipolar world, when America was the only “pole,” the European Union could pretend that it had a shared interest (it is not a coincidence that the European Union only came into existence after the end of the Cold War). The recently freed post-communist states clamoured to join America’s defence umbrella and Europe’s free market, and the EU quickly expanded across the continent, reaching the Baltics by 2004 (though, critically, the Baltics joined NATO before they joined the EU). American defence, Russian gas, and cheap Chinese products allowed for a paradisical European equilibrium. But as Russia and China began to assert themselves, and America grew tired of defending a continent unwilling to defend itself, Europe’s equilibrium became unbalanced. 

Had the European Union remained a compact of western and some central European states, it could have weathered this storm. But expanding from the English Channel to the Black Sea meant the inclusion of states like Bulgaria, Romania, and the Baltics – all of which have fundamentally different security interests than Western Europe. France, as has been famously noted, was desperately trying to sell Russia a warship even after the latter had invaded Ukraine in 2014. This is because of history: France fought side-by-side with Russia in both world wars and allied with them repeatedly before that. There is nothing which inherently makes France and Russia enemies. 

But Europe’s foreign policy is now governed by Kallas, an Estonian, a country which – for obvious reasons – is concerned about Russia, as is most of Eastern Europe. Those countries fundamentally need the United States to defend them. Germany, France, and Spain simply cannot provide the protection, nuclear or otherwise, that the United States can offer. Some Eastern European leaders, such as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, ventured to critique the Trump administration (though again, in a tweet). But even his criticism was mild, failing to name the United States – only vaguely referring to “allies”; it is also not shocking that Tusk, a Brussels establishmentarian at heart, would be the one to more closely align with that view.

Western Europe is an entirely different story. Deep down, those countries – Belgium and France, for example – know that they have nothing to truly fear from Russia. The only time Russian troops ever set foot in France was to push back after Napoleon’s invasion of Moscow, and France is not capable of making such a trek in 2026 (apologies to Emmanuel Macron). But an America in control of Greenland does, in the uncertainty of a multipolar world, threaten them. In a hypothetical 2056, when NATO is no more, American troops may be out of Europe – but being in Greenland allows America to project power far more effectively than France or the United Kingdom could.

In the middle is Central Europe, which itself has different interests. Denmark, obviously, would prefer to control Greenland, but has no real reason to fear Russia (the only country to invade it in recent memory is its southern neighbour). Germany, in a multipolar world order, has reason to fear both. Austria would not have had an issue with anyone had it kept its neutrality, but now that its current government has de facto abandoned it, it too will have to start worrying about threats. Finally, there is Italy, which has urged negotiations for the same reason Eastern European countries have: Greenland has literally never factored into its national interest before, and it won’t start doing so today. As a Mediterranean power, with a government that has sought to keep friendly ties with Washington, Rome gains nothing from a prolonged tangle over an island far to the north. 

This is the problem that multipolarity will pose for the future of the European Union: That western, central, and eastern European countries have fundamentally different interests. No amount of clever wording will override that basic fact. Bulgaria has no reason to care about Greenland, just as Spain has no reason to care about Estonia.

Europe’s establishmentarians can talk all day about the importance of European unity. But talk doesn’t change reality. Sooner or later, Brussels will have to deal with it.