Having only very recently said goodbye to Greenland, I wasn’t expecting to return so soon. Though slightly larger than a combination of France, Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain, Greenland is home to a relatively small population – around 60,000. One question remains: is the island even a part of Europe? According to the Nordic Council, “although part of the North American continent, geopolitically the island is part of Europe”.

But a number of factors – all related to Donald Trump’s recently refreshed bid to buy an island that is, for the time being, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark – seem to justify a press review dedicated to Greenland.

Following a “fiery” phone conversation between Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Trump, in which the recently inaugurated US President confronted Frederiksen over Denmark’s refusal to sell Greenland, there were mixed messages about the correct European response. 

On the one hand, Frederiksen has visited Berlin, Paris and Brussels to promote “EU unity”, and has launched a two billion euro “Arctic security plan”. On the other hand, as the Financial Times reports, the EU and NATO are taking a “vow of silence over Greenland after Denmark urged its allies not to respond to Donald Trump’s threats to seize the Arctic island”. As a result, “there have [...] been no efforts to coordinate Nato or EU statements in defence of Denmark or Greenland.”

In 1982, Greenlanders voted by a small majority (52% versus 48%) to leave what was then the European Community (EC). However, a survey published in December 2024 by Nasiffik Centre for Foreign & Security Policy suggests that “60% of Greenlandic citizens would vote in favour of rejoining the EU, up from 40 percent in 2021”, as the New Union Post reports. As the head of Nasiffik, Rasmus Leander Nielsen, reminds us, Greenland’s current status as an Overseas Territory “works well for receiving structural funds and funds for education, as well as for green energy and mining”. Nevertheless, Nielsen says he would be “surprised” if Greenlanders decided to take the relationship a step further and rejoin the EU. As the New Union Post explains, when it comes to EU enlargement “the shared ‘elephant in the room’ for Iceland, Greenland, and Norway [is] fishing quotas and the EU Common Fisheries Policy”.

As for whether Greenlanders want their island to become part of the USA, the answer is an “overwhelming and very unequivocal” no, according to a new poll conducted by Verian for Danish newspaper Berlingske and Greenland’s Sermitsiaq (one of Greenland’s two national newspapers). As Daniel Tideman and Mia Gleerup Fallentin report in Berlingske, “85 percent of Greenlanders say no to the idea that they want Greenland to leave the Danish Realm and become part of the US instead. Only 6 percent of Greenlanders want to leave the Danish Realm in favour of the US, and 9 percent are undecided.” The poll also found that “45% of Greenlanders [...] perceive Donald Trump’s interest in Greenland as a threat, and only eight percent would accept a US passport if they had to decide right now whether they wanted Danish or American citizenship”.

Earlier in January, Julie Schneider, again in Berlingske, investigated a different poll, conducted by the US agency Patriot Polling, suggesting that 57% of Greenlanders were in fact in favour of joining the USA. Schneider found that the poll had been cited 356 times between 12 and 15 January by Russian-language and Russian state-affiliated outlets and news agencies like Sputnik, Ria Novosti and Tass. European Council on Foreign Relations fellow José Ignacio Torreblanca told Schneider that Russia was trying to use Greenland to drive a wedge between the United States, Europe and the transatlantic alliance. 

Danish public broadcaster DR warns that “the risk of disinformation directed against Greenland has increased” since Trump’s new expression of interest in the island. Fake articles purporting to be from Greenland’s public broadcaster; a fake Facebook profile of Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede; a fake story claiming Danish Green Left politician Karsten Hønge was seeking help from Russia to avoid Greenlandic secession: just a few examples of the disinformation targeted at Greenland in recent weeks. As Thomas Prakash, Frederik Gatzwiller and Alexzander Lundquist Thomsen point out in their article, only a month ago a report found that there was no evidence of any foreign influence campaigns on the island. The recent rise in disinformation also coincides with the approach of Greenland’s parliamentary election, due to take place some time before 6 April. “Last time, about 27,000 voters voted in these elections, so it only takes a few votes to shape the result”, the journalists write.

Signe Ravn-Højgaard, a sociologist at the University of Greenland, diagnoses the problem: “In Greenland, the problem is that there are only two media houses with relatively few journalists covering all kinds of topics in all kinds of formats, so there are not as many journalists to fact-check and investigate claims, which means disinformation has the potential to thrive in Greenland”.

According to Danish MEP Morten Løkkegaard (Renew), if Greenlanders really want to ward off Trump’s advances, EU membership could offer the “protection” they need. Talking to Seb Starcevic in Politico Europe, Løkkegaard observes that an unintended consequence of Trump’s bid is that Greenland may give more serious consideration to reopening discussions about closer relations with Europe. “If you want political change, this just might be the kick that is necessary for the Greenlanders to have a fresh look at what happens in Europe”. Løkkegaard also argues that Greenland is “a natural candidate for EU membership, with a strong democracy and welfare system”.

Of course, there is also a third opinion poll that matters just as much as the ones mentioned above: Greenlanders’ attitude towards full independence. As Mark Leibovich mentions in his highly entertaining story for US outlet The Atlantic, the most recent reliable poll was conducted back in 2019 by the University of Copenhagen. The poll revealed that 68 percent of Greenlanders would like for Greenland to be completely independent at some point in the future (only 39 percent would vote for independence if the vote was to be held tomorrow, Lisa Munck Seidelin clarifies in her article for TV 2). This appears to be reflected in the country’s political makeup: “the Parliament”, Leibovich writes, “consists of 31 members, who, from what I can tell, represent 31 nuanced flavours of pro-Greenlandic-independence”. As Greenland MP Aaja Chemnitz and Prime Minister Egede have both reiterated: “We don’t want to be Danish, we don’t want to be American. We want to be Greenlanders”.

Ciarán Lawless

Click here to subscribe to ESSF newsletters in English and or French.