«Europe prefers dialogue and solutions, but we are fully prepared to act, if necessary, with unity, urgency and determination. Beyond this, we need our own strategic approach.
The European package for Arctic security
This is why we are working on a package to support Arctic security. A first pillar will be a massive increase in European investments in Greenland, in particular to support the local economy and infrastructure.”
Defense spending and equipment for the Arctic
Ursula von der Leyen said this to the European Chamber, adding: “we should use the increase in defense spending to purchase equipment suitable for the Arctic”.
The Union’s commitment to Greenland
«Two years ago, before all this happened, I was in Nuuk to inaugurate our first office in that city. And in the next European budget we have already proposed to double our financial support. But we need to do more and faster.
Cooperation with United States and international partners
Second, we will work with the United States and all partners to ensure greater security in the Arctic.
In particular, I believe we should direct our defense spending towards purchasing Arctic-ready equipment AND strengthen our security agreements with partners like the UK, Canada, Norway, Iceland and others.
A review of the European security strategy
Finally, I believe that Europe itself needs to re-evaluate its broader security strategy.
This should consider what is needed to adapt to today’s new realities. Many of you have worked on various national or European security strategies, some of them in the recent past. But the world has changed so rapidly and Europe must now change with it”, underlined von der Leyen.
Bessent’s statements and the clash with the European allies
Immediately after having defined the attitude of the European chancelleries towards American aims on Greenland as “incomprehensible acrimony”, the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, launched a series of unflattering epithets towards the so-called allies from the press conference at the Davos Forum.
Bessent first defined the reaction of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as “provocative”, and then as “irrelevant”, Denmark, whose pension fund sold its investments in US Treasury bonds.
“The amount of Danish investment in US Treasury bonds is as irrelevant as Denmark itself, it is less than $100 million, it doesn’t worry me at all,” Bessent said. The Treasury Secretary then returned to defining Great Britain as “disappointing”, attacked yesterday by Trump for the transfer of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.