EU chief Ursula von der Leyen unveiled plans on Monday for some 200 million euros ($232 million) in Greenland investments amid a push for closer ties with the Danish Arctic territory, which U.S. President Donald Trump had earlier insisted should belong to the United States.
Von der Leyen arrived in Greenland on Sunday for a two-day visit serving as a show of support for the governments of Greenland and Denmark, which have strongly rebuffed Trump’s campaign to acquire the world’s largest island.
The head of the 27-nation European Union's executive body said the EU money would focus on sectors including critical minerals, satellite communications and renewable energy in Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of the Danish realm.
"The EU stands in full solidarity with the Kingdom of Denmark and the people of Greenland," von der Leyen told a news conference.
"We will continue to do so."
Von der Leyen's visit reflects the increasing geopolitical importance of the Arctic to major powers, such as the U.S., Russia, China and Europe, as melting ice opens new shipping routes to make the region’s mineral wealth more accessible.
The European Commission chief, who took a boat trip on Sunday in a fjord scattered with chunks of ice, had earlier posted on X how she was struck by Greenland's stunning landscapes, but aware of the "visible scars of climate change."
"As the ice melts, a new reality is taking shape," she wrote.
U.S. President Trump sparked a crisis in U.S.-European ties and turmoil within the transatlantic NATO military alliance this year when he stepped up his demands for the U.S. to control Greenland, arguing that fellow NATO member Denmark could not defend it.
European officials stressed Greenland is part of NATO territory, meaning it is covered by the alliance’s mutual defense pact, and that the U.S. already has the right to increase its military presence there under a long-standing treaty.
Tensions lowered after Trump and NATO boss Mark Rutte agreed in Davos in January that the U.S., Denmark and Greenland would begin talks to resolve their differences and NATO would step up its role in Arctic security.
However, the trilateral talks have yet to yield an agreement and at a NATO summit in Türkiye in July, Trump restated his insistence that the U.S. should control Greenland.
Von der Leyen said Greenland's future was for the people of Greenland and Denmark to decide and no one else.
"The Arctic has become one of the places where the tectonic plates of geopolitics collide. We have a direct stake in what happens here," she said, adding that her Commission would set out a new EU Arctic strategy in the coming months.
While Denmark is a member of the EU, Greenland left the bloc in 1985. But its people, as Danish citizens, are also citizens of the EU.
The EU has long provided funding to Greenland, mainly to pay for fishing rights and support its education system. The €200 million package represents not only a big increase in funding but a broadening of the sectors that will receive EU cash, according to EU officials.
The Commission has also proposed more than doubling EU funding for Greenland from 225 million euros in its current seven-year budget to 530 million euros for the period between 2028 and 2034.
