This is an opinion article. The views expressed belong to the author.
A US annexation of Greenland poses a more lethal threat to the European Union than Brexit or the Eurozone crisis ever did. The tragedy of the “Greenland Scenario” is that the US wouldn’t even need to fire a shot to destroy the EU. It would simply need to force a vote. By forcing Europe to choose between sovereignty and safety, the Union would tear itself apart before the first hostile US Marine landed in Nuuk.
Luxembourg, like Denmark, relies on a specific contract: sovereignty is absolute, regardless of size. If the United States demonstrates that it can carve up the territory of a founding NATO member for strategic convenience, that contract is void.
Any attempt, whether coercive, transactional, or disguised as a “deal” to detach Greenland from Danish sovereignty would constitute an unprecedented challenge to the European post-war order. If Donald Trump forces this issue, it will be acting on a long-held conviction that the European Union was, in the President’s own words, “formed to screw the United States.”
That belief matters. It frames Europe not as a strategic ally, but as a rival structure whose cohesion is at best unnecessary and at worst hostile to American interests. Under that logic, Greenland becomes not an outlier, but an opportunity.
European leaders often respond to such scenarios by invoking NATO as a guarantee against escalation. Yet this confidence rests on a miscalculation of how the alliance functions. NATO is not simply a machine; it is a psychological contract. It relies on the absolute belief that the United States is the guarantor of territorial integrity. (Yes, the United States, and not just any NATO country.)
A US annexation of Greenland poses a more lethal threat to the European Union than Brexit or the Eurozone crisis ever did:
The European Union’s credibility does not rest solely on treaties or economic integration. It rests on the shared understanding that membership implies collective political protection. If the EU cannot unite to protect the borders of one of its own members (Denmark) from a foreign power, the “Union” ceases to exist in any practical sense. It devolves from a political superpower into a loose trade agreement.
Such a failure would not remain confined to the Arctic. It would redefine every future negotiation on defence, enlargement, and foreign policy. Europe would no longer be judged by its declarations, but by the precedent of its inaction.
A hostile move by the United States would expose long-standing internal divisions:
Some member states would prioritise the preservation of the transatlantic relationship above all else, arguing that confrontation with Washington is untenable. Others would fear economic or security retaliation. Another group would insist that accepting such a precedent fatally undermines the logic of European integration.
This fracture is not hypothetical. It is already visible in rhetoric emanating from within the EU itself.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a political ally of Donald Trump, has recently argued that the European Union does not need to be dismantled from the outside because it will be “falling apart by itself.” Such remarks are not idle provocation for domestic audiences. They echo key statements in the recently published U.S. National Security Strategy, which declares an intention to “cultivate resistance” to Europe’s current trajectory by encouraging nationalistic (“patriotic”) movements within the EU.
The tragedy of the “Greenland Scenario” is that the US wouldn’t even need to fire a shot to destroy the EU. It would simply need to force a vote. By forcing Europe to choose between sovereignty and safety, the Union would tear itself apart before the first hostile US Marine landed in Nuuk.
Daniel Kaderjak is a lawyer living in Luxembourg
