What Europe learned from the Greenland crisis
However, Davos taught Europe another lesson. Standing together on the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty and warning of serious economic countermeasures, the Europeans won an apparent retreat from Trump on the Greenland issue.
Sovereignty and inviolability of borders are the fundamental principles of the European project built on the ruins of the Second World War, in which the aggressive imperialism of the great powers led to millions of deaths. The lesson was clear: collectively defending borders is the only way to protect small states from attacks by large states.
Now Europe finds itself once again confronting great powers with expansionist goals. Russia continues its efforts to seize Ukraine, whose sovereignty it recognizes through many agreements. And the US is demanding that EU and NATO ally Denmark hand over Greenland.
However, protecting territorial integrity and sovereignty is the red line expressed in both the European Union, consisting of 27 countries, and NATO, the military alliance consisting of 32 countries. In today’s world, it may seem quixotic to defend international law, the UN Charter and the Helsinki Accords, which insist on the inviolability of borders, but in a way this is the fate of Europe.
“Borders can be challenged by force, and the threat of force threatens the fundamental principles of Europe’s security and aspirations since the end of the Second World War,” said Ian Lesser, head of the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund.
“The war in Ukraine has brought this to the fore,” he continued, “but the idea that the United States, the chief guarantor of European security, is challenging the notions of sovereignty and territorial integrity is a serious concern.” Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, argued that the continent was rediscovering the importance of sovereignty in the face of challenges from the “great powers” China, Russia and the United States.
“Much of European history since World War II has been about taming sovereignty and bundling it into multilateral institutions,” he said. But he said the new world had “fundamentally changed the nature of the EU”.
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Europeans are aware that they cannot defend the old, rules-based order globally, “but they can be confident that this order will survive in Europe,” he said. “Thus the importance of Ukraine and Greenland.”
Leonard said he hoped “Europeans will learn from the last few days, that when they defend sovereignty and territorial integrity and those rules, they will be able to defend them.”
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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was praised for saying in his speech in Davos that the old international order was dead. He said “middle powers” such as Canada and Europe must forge new alliances as major powers abandon post-war international norms and agreements and instead rely on “economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as pressure, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.”
Carney stated that there was a break in the old order and said, “When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.”
Europe is learning this lesson.
Europeans have resisted Trump’s demands that Ukraine hand over to Russia territory that Moscow has not conquered. The Europeans insisted that even if a peace agreement led to Russian troops occupying 20 percent of Ukraine, the occupation would never be permanently recognized, even in Crimea.
The Europeans have provided Ukraine with more monetary and military aid than the United States, largely filling the gap left after Trump cut funding to Ukraine. They recently agreed to 90 billion euros ($106 billion) in additional economic and military aid to Kiev.
And it was the Europeans who expressed solidarity with Denmark and Greenland against Trump’s demands to annex the island according to the same principle of territorial integrity, causing Trump to back down.
French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking on behalf of many Europeans in Davos, said: “Europe now has very powerful tools and we have to use them.”
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever was harsher. “Many red lines are being crossed,” he said at the forum. “It’s one thing to be a happy slave, it’s another thing to be a miserable slave.”
Jana Puglierin, head of the German office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said smaller European nations, such as the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, were deeply concerned about attacks on their sovereignty by major powers.
“This is the end of their business model,” he said. “This is the basis of the European Union and the post-war order, where one country gets one vote, no matter how small.”
He said that Russia, China and the USA are trying to change the entire international order, and Europe is in the middle. All these countries are “trying to divide us,” he said, “because it’s easier to deal with us when we’re divided.”
The key question, he said, is whether the European Union and NATO can still function in this new, more greedy world. These institutions are “based on the principle of inviolability of sovereignty and consensus, and the challenge we now face is the existence of institutions that bring peace and prosperity to Europe.”
This article was first published in The New York Times.
