EU Council Warns US Over Greenland: Sovereignty Not Negotiable
Antonio Costa rejects Washington’s territorial ambitions, says threats to EU member states’ integrity are unacceptable
Europe, PUREWILAYAH.COM - European Council President Antonio Costa delivered a firm warning in defense of European sovereignty, declaring that any threat to the territorial integrity of an EU member state is “simply unacceptable.”
His remarks were made during a European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg on Wednesday, as diplomatic tensions escalate between the United States and Denmark over Greenland.
“We want to communicate with our US partners, but we must be clear,” Costa said. “A threat to the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of our member state is simply unacceptable.”
The statement reflects growing concern within the European Union over Washington’s increasingly explicit territorial ambitions, which EU officials view as a direct challenge to international norms and member state sovereignty.
Greenland at Center of US Pressure on Denmark
Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, has once again become the focus of US geopolitical pressure. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that Greenland should join the United States, citing its strategic importance to US national security.
Both Danish and Greenlandic authorities have firmly rejected these claims, issuing clear warnings against any attempt to seize or unilaterally claim the island. Officials stressed that the territorial integrity of the Danish kingdom is not open to negotiation and must be fully respected.
The renewed US push has been widely interpreted as another example of Washington’s coercive foreign policy posture toward allies, prioritizing strategic control over sovereign rights.
NATO Unity Questioned as EU Draws Red Lines
The Greenland dispute has raised serious questions about the future of NATO unity, as tensions between key alliance members deepen. While acknowledging the importance of NATO, Costa emphasized that EU sovereignty takes precedence.
“As the unity of NATO is being questioned, we must ensure that EU interests are upheld,” he said, underscoring that alliance commitments cannot come at the expense of member states’ territorial rights.
Although EU leaders reiterated the importance of dialogue with Washington, the message was unequivocal: EU sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable. The European Council’s position signals a growing readiness within the bloc to push back diplomatically against US overreach, even when it comes from a transatlantic ally.
As the Greenland issue continues to unfold, EU leaders are expected to maintain a firm stance while insisting that any engagement with Washington must be grounded in respect for sovereignty and international law. (PW)
Dear European governments, look at the map of U.S. military bases above and tell us again about your self-respect, about how you’re going to fight Trump in Greenland (where he also has a military base), about all the military violence metaphors in your newspapers’ columns about trade policies, but understand that we know about the thing you’ve never mentioned: the empire of bases. You don’t even issue self-respecting threats to evict foreign bases like the president of Honduras has done.
Pieces of your land are not yours. You cannot know what is in them. You cannot ask what flows out of them into your poisoned water and soil. You cannot enforce your laws against the people who emerge from the bases, drunk and disturbed. You can let your people do menial jobs there, as second-class citizens in their own countries, but you cannot decide where new bases are built. You cannot complain about the targets the bases place on you, about the weapons of mass destruction they contain, or about their use in distant acts of evil. You cannot even suggest that the use of U.S. bases in Europe for distant wars is gratuitous, because we all know that you know that it is, that the point of keeping the U.S. military in Europe is not to protect you but to control you.
Dear European governments, I say this as a U.S. resident who has lived in Europe and loves Europe, regarding the topic of democracy, please for godsake shut the hell up. None of you has ever once asked the people of your country or any subregion thereof whether they wanted a military base built — not in the case of a single one of the bases you see on the map above. The Czech Republic was once compelled to let people vote — as the people of Ecuador just voted — but we know how that tends to go, so you carefully avoid it. You let the U.S. government avoid its own people and the basic rule of law by providing it off-the-books secret sites on which it can do what evil it pleases to whom it pleases. Do you serve the CIA or the people of Europe? You let the U.S. violate the Nonproliferation Treaty by putting nuclear weapons in your countries and justify it through the legalistic legerdemain of suggesting that it is not really your land. It’s Donald Trump’s. You can blame the U.S. public all you want for him — we richly deserve it — but you cannot pretend he acts in our name — nobody believes that.
In February, people across Europe and the world will be participating in Global Days of Action to #CloseBases. But protests of these bases is, as you know, nothing new. I’ve visited Europe and taken part in huge demonstrations against bases in Ireland, Germany, Italy, and England, that are much like those in other parts of Europe. In Ireland there is endless protest of the use of Shannon Airport by the U.S. military, while the government of Ireland is more focused on stripping itself of neutrality and making itself more formally Trump’s servant. Last summer, I joined an annual peace camp outside the nightmare disneyland city that is the Ramstein U.S. base in Germany: a resort with athletic fields, golf course, shopping mall, and top-of-the-line services like a new hospital paid for in part by Germans who can’t use it, not to mention immunity for petty crimes and major crimes like crashing planes, permanently poisoning groundwater, guiding drone murders, and refueling bombers on their way to bomb various countries.
https://davidswanson.org/europe-pretends-to-talk-about-self-respect-while-coated-with-u-s-military-bases/