Should Greenland join the European Union?

Tuesday 13 January 2026

The suggestion that Greenland might one day join the European Union has re-emerged intermittently over the past decade, but it has taken on a sharper geopolitical edge amid renewed American rhetoric about the island’s strategic value. The idea is not merely economic or administrative. It raises a deeper question: whether European Union membership could serve as a legal and political shield against United States territorial ambitions, explicit or implicit, towards Greenland.

Greenland’s constitutional position is already unusual. She is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, yet enjoys extensive self-government under the 2009 Self-Rule Act. Copenhagen retains responsibility for defence and foreign affairs, but Nuuk exercises control over domestic policy, natural resources and economic development. When Denmark joined the European Economic Community in 1973, Greenland followed, but withdrew in 1985 after a referendum driven largely by disputes over fisheries. Since then Greenland has been associated with the European Union as an Overseas Country and Territory, receiving financial support and preferential trade access without being bound by the full acquis communautaire (the entirety of European Union law).

Against this background, the notion of European Union membership as a strategic bulwark deserves sober analysis rather than rhetorical enthusiasm. The trigger for renewed discussion has been Washington’s increasingly blunt articulation of Greenland’s military and resource importance. From the presence of the United States Air Force at Thule to speculative interest in rare earth minerals and Arctic shipping routes, Greenland has become central to American Arctic strategy. Remarks by figures associated with President Donald Trump, including the infamous 2019 suggestion of purchasing Greenland, were widely dismissed as unserious, yet they reflected a deeper strategic logic that has not disappeared and is now leading to a US-Denmark-Greenland summit to discuss the future of the nation, due on 14 January 2026.

Would European Union membership materially alter this equation? In legal terms, accession would integrate Greenland into the European Union’s constitutional order. Her territory would fall under European Union law, and any attempt by a third state to acquire territory or exercise coercive pressure would, in principle, engage the collective interests of the Union as a whole. Politically, this could raise the diplomatic cost to Washington of even speculative territorial claims. It would also situate Greenland firmly within Europe’s Arctic policy framework, alongside Finland and Sweden, and in coordination with Denmark as a member state.

However the European Union is not a military alliance. While Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union contains a mutual defence clause, its practical operation remains ambiguous and largely untested. Greenland’s security would, in practice, continue to rely on NATO structures, within which the United States remains the dominant actor. European Union membership would therefore offer political solidarity and legal entanglement rather than hard deterrence. It would complicate American ambitions, but not necessarily foreclose them.

From Greenland’s own perspective, accession would come at a high price. Rejoining the European Union would require acceptance of the full acquis, including fisheries policy, environmental regulation and competition law. Fisheries remain the backbone of Greenland’s economy, and the Common Fisheries Policy was precisely the issue that drove withdrawal four decades ago. While the policy has evolved, surrendering autonomous control over fishing quotas would remain politically explosive in Nuuk. Moreover European Union state aid rules and environmental standards could constrain the rapid development of mining projects that Greenland’s political leadership often views as the path to eventual economic independence from Denmark.

There is also the question of identity and political trajectory. Many in Greenland view self-government as a stepping stone towards eventual independence. European Union membership could be framed as a European anchoring of that future sovereign state, yet it could equally be seen as substituting one set of external constraints for another. The European Union is a legal order that demands deep regulatory alignment and judicial oversight, something that may sit uneasily with Greenlandic aspirations for maximal autonomy.

For Denmark the calculus is equally delicate. Copenhagen would have to sponsor and negotiate any accession process, while managing her own bilateral relationship with Washington. Denmark has historically balanced her European commitments with close transatlantic ties. Using European Union membership as a geopolitical counterweight to the United States would mark a significant shift in that posture, one that Copenhagen may be reluctant to pursue overtly.

Ultimately European Union membership would not be a silver bullet against American territorial ambitions. It would raise diplomatic, legal and political barriers, embedding Greenland more deeply in a European framework and making any attempt at coercion far more complex. Yet the decisive factors shaping Greenland’s future remain internal: economic sustainability, political consensus in Nuuk and the evolving relationship with Denmark. External guarantees, whether European or transatlantic, can only reinforce choices made locally.

The renewed discussion of European Union accession should therefore be understood less as a defensive manoeuvre against Washington, and more as a reflection of Greenland’s growing centrality in global politics. As the Arctic opens and great-power competition intensifies, Greenland’s challenge will be to convert her strategic value into durable autonomy without becoming the object rather than the author of geopolitical design.