Europe’s Federal Moment: Greenland, Article 20 Treaty on European Union, and the Limits of Alliance Politics

EUROPE, 19 Jan 2026

Manuel Galiñanes, Mauro Casarotto and Leo Klinkers – TRANSCEND Media Service

18 Jan 2026 – Recent statements and actions by the United States (U.S.) and the European Union (EU) reveal a world drifting toward a new and unsettling equilibrium. The proliferation of crises—from Ukraine and Gaza to Taiwan, Venezuela, and now Greenland—does not merely signal disorder. It reflects the emergence of an international system increasingly shaped by great powers seeking to preserve influence amid relative decline or contested primacy.

What is taking shape is not a rules-based order under strain, but a logic of managed instability, in which crises are contained, instrumentalized, and selectively prolonged rather than resolved. Greenland, a European territory whose sovereignty has been openly questioned by an ally, exposes this reality with unusual clarity. When security guarantees depend less on constitutional commitments than on the discretion of dominant powers, Europe’s fragmentation becomes not just a weakness, but a liability. The question Europe now faces is whether it will continue to rely on external restraint—or finally assume shared sovereignty over its own security.

U.S. foreign policy today is marked by a paradoxical combination of assertiveness and restraint. On the one hand, Washington relies heavily on economic coercion, sanctions, extraterritorial regulation, and the threat of military force to sustain its global position. On the other, it avoids decisive commitments where escalation might impose unacceptable political, economic, or military costs. This dual strategy suggests less a consistent defense of universal norms than an attempt to manage relative decline by shaping the conditions under which instability unfolds.

The recent U.S. posture toward Venezuela illustrates this pattern clearly. Framed in the language of democracy, security, and regional stability, Washington’s actions revive a hemispheric logic reminiscent of the Monroe Doctrine at precisely the moment when Chinese investment and Russian diplomacy have expanded their footprint across Latin America [1,2]. The underlying message is unmistakable: certain regions remain non-negotiable for U.S. influence, even as the U.S. continues to present itself as the guardian of a universal international order.

A similar logic governs U.S. engagement in Eastern Europe. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Washington has provided extensive military, financial, and intelligence support, yet carefully calibrated to avoid direct confrontation with Moscow. The result has been a prolonged war of attrition that weakens Russia strategically while leaving Ukraine devastated and Europe exposed to profound economic, social, and security shocks [3,4]. The conflict is managed rather than resolved, with its human and material costs externalized largely onto Ukrainians and European societies.

That Europe’s governments—and their collective expression in the EU—appeared surprised by this outcome reveals a deeper failure. Basic historical knowledge of how autocratic regimes consolidate power and exploit strategic hesitation should long ago have led Europe to close ranks politically. A quietly established European defence capability, independent but not hostile to the U.S., could have mitigated Europe’s vulnerability. Instead, strategic dependence persisted.

In the Middle East, U.S. policy reflects another form of selective principle. Washington’s unwavering diplomatic and military support for Israel—despite mounting evidence of violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza and the West Bank—has further eroded Western credibility on human rights and legal consistency [5]. Once again, alliance management and regional stability outweigh the universal norms the U.S. formally endorses.

East Asia completes the picture. The long-standing U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan—arming the island while withholding an explicit security guarantee—was once justified as deterrence. Today, it increasingly resembles a tacit acknowledgment of China’s core interests combined with an effort to postpone rather than prevent confrontation [6]. Taken together, U.S. restraint in Ukraine, permissiveness in the Middle East, and ambiguity in East Asia lend credibility to a troubling hypothesis: the gradual emergence of an undeclared tripolar accommodation among the U.S., China, and Russia.

This logic echoes, uncomfortably, Carl Schmitt’s concept of Großraum—“great spaces” dominated by a central power (Reich) that defines political order within its sphere [7]. While Schmitt’s theory emerged from an explicitly authoritarian and imperial worldview, its analytical relevance lies in describing how power politics displace universal norms. In today’s context, spheres of influence are not declared, but tolerated. International law survives rhetorically, while its application becomes selective.

Russia asserts dominance in parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia; China consolidates influence in East Asia and the South China Sea; and the U.S. reasserts primacy in the Western Hemisphere, the Arctic, and key maritime chokepoints. Smaller states pay the price—unless they recognize that their survival depends not on isolated sovereignty, but on federal political organization capable of collective self-defense.

It is within this emerging order that Europe’s strategic weakness becomes existential. Despite its economic weight and normative ambitions, the EU is not recognized as a geopolitical pole. Fragmented sovereignty, unanimity requirements, and limited defence integration render it largely reactive—even when its own interests are directly implicated [8,9]. Europe’s hesitant responses to Venezuela, Ukraine, and the Middle East already reveal this deficit. The U.S. threat to annex Greenland exposes it in stark and destabilizing terms.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that the U.S. “needs” Greenland for national security—combined with his refusal to rule out the use of force—represent more than rhetorical excess. They reveal how great-power anxiety can spill into direct threats to allied sovereignty. Greenland’s strategic importance is undeniable: its position on the shortest route between North America and Europe, its missile early-warning systems, and its growing relevance as Arctic ice melts make it central to transatlantic security [10.11].

Yet the paradox is striking. Trump first floated the idea of acquiring Greenland in 2019, later demanded that NATO members increase defence spending by five percent of GDP to strengthen collective security, and now undermines that very security by threatening to annex the territory of a NATO ally. The logic is self-contradictory. If security is the objective, it can be achieved within NATO. Annexation would do precisely the opposite.

It is also cynical. Trump has justified annexation by invoking the risk that Russia or China might seek control over Greenland—while proposing to do exactly that for U.S. benefit. The thinly veiled agenda of exploiting Greenland’s natural resources is unacceptable conduct toward an ally. This is naked power politics, not collective defence.

European leaders have rightly treated this prospect as existential—though dangerously late. Danish and Greenlandic authorities have categorically rejected any transfer of sovereignty. German and French policymakers have warned that such an act would undermine NATO’s foundational principle: that an attack on one is an attack on all. Even within the U.S., public opinion overwhelmingly opposes annexation.

The Greenland episode crystallizes a lesson repeatedly taught by history and repeatedly ignored. Alliances based on goodwill rather than binding constitutional commitments are inherently fragile. Europe can no longer assume that its security is guaranteed by external actors whose strategic calculations may abruptly diverge from European interests. In a world of managed instability, reliance without sovereignty becomes a liability.

The world Europe now confronts is no longer one in which restraint can be assumed or security outsourced without cost. A system organized around managed instability, informal spheres of influence, and unilateral security claims leaves little room for a Europe that remains politically fragmented while strategically exposed. Greenland has made this unmistakably clear. When the sovereignty of a European territory can be publicly questioned by an ally, the issue is not diplomatic miscalculation—it is constitutional vulnerability. Dependence without sovereignty is no longer a viable foundation for European security.

Europe does not suffer from a lack of legal capacity, but from a reluctance to act commensurately with the threats it faces. The independence of European states, territories, and peoples who belong to a shared socio-cultural continuum—and who aspire to deeper unity grounded in the rule of law, liberal democracy, fairness, and sustainability—is now under pressure along Europe’s Atlantic, Arctic, and eastern borders. These pressures emanate from distinct yet convergent authoritarian challenges that do not respond to hesitation or rhetorical diplomacy, but only to actors they recognize as strategic equals. Achieving such balance requires those European states prepared to advance together to move beyond intergovernmental coordination toward constitutionally grounded federation. Article 20 of the Treaty on European Union (“Provisions on Enhanced Cooperation”) was designed precisely for this purpose:

“1. Member States which wish to establish enhanced cooperation between themselves within the framework of the Union’s non-exclusive competences may make use of its institutions and exercise those competences by applying the relevant provisions of the Treaties, subject to the limits and in accordance with the detailed arrangements laid down in this Article and in Articles 326 to 334 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

2. The decision authorising enhanced cooperation shall be adopted by the Council as a last resort, when it has established that the objectives of such cooperation cannot be attained within a reasonable period by the Union as a whole, and provided that at least nine Member States participate in it. The Council shall act in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 329 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
3. All members of the Council may participate in its deliberations, but only members of the Council representing the Member States participating in enhanced cooperation shall take part in the vote. The voting rules are set out in Article 330 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
4. Acts adopted in the framework of enhanced cooperation shall bind participating Member States. They shall not be regarded as part of the acquis which has to be accepted by candidate States for accession to the Union.” [12]

In this way, a group of at least nine Member States is allowed to proceed to enhanced cooperation when unanimity obstructs action vital to collective security and sovereignty. Far from undermining European unity, such a federal core would constitute its most credible safeguard—offering constitutional authority where discretionary goodwill and treaty assurances alone no longer suffice, and potentially inaugurating a broader federalisation of the European continent.

A European Federation need not emerge all at once, nor require immediate participation by all Member States. It can begin with those willing to share authority over defense, foreign policy, and strategic decision-making, fully within the EU’s legal framework. Such a step would not weaken alliances, but rebalance them—restoring Europe as a credible political subject rather than a dependent space.

Beyond Europe, the implications extend further. In an international system drifting toward partition and power-based accommodation, a federal Europe could offer a constitutional alternative grounded in shared sovereignty and democratic accountability. As argued in the World Constitution proposed by Galiñanes and Klinkers [13], stable global order cannot rest on informal bargains among great powers alone, but on federated structures capable of cooperation without domination.

The choice before Europe is therefore no longer abstract. It is constitutional and immediate. Greenland has exposed the cost of delay. Article 20 TEU provides a lawful and democratic starting point. The remaining question is whether Europe will continue to navigate managed chaos—or take responsibility for shared sovereignty.

References:

1. Walt, S. M. (2018). The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
2. Farrell, H., & Newman, A. (2019). “Weaponized Interdependence.” International Security, 44(1), 42–79.
3. Mearsheimer, J. J. (2014). “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault.” Foreign Affairs, 93(5), 77–89.
4. Posen, B. (2014). Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
5. Rachman, G. (2022). The Age of the Strongman. London: Bodley Head.
6. Gaddis, J. L. (2018). On Grand Strategy. New York: Penguin Press.
7. Schmitt, C. (2009 [1941]). Völkerrechtliche Großraumordnung. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.
8. Zielonka, J. (2014). Is the EU Doomed? Cambridge: Polity Press.
9. Biscop, S. (2021). Grand Strategy in 10 Words: A Guide to Great Power Politics in the 21st Century. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
10. (2026). “Trump Says U.S. Needs Greenland for Security.”
11. Dodds, K., & Nuttal, M. (2021). The Scramble for the Poles: The Geopolitics of the Arctic and Antarctic. Cambridge: Polity Press.
12. European Union. Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, Article 20, Official Journal of the European Union, C 326, 26 October 2012.
13. Galiñanes, M., & Klinkers, L. (2026). Constitution for a Wotld Federation. Letrame Publisher.

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Manuel Galiñanes: President of the Federal Alliance of European Federalists (FAEF)
Mauro Casarotto: Secretary-General of the FAEF
Leo Klinkers: Former President of the FAEF

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 19 Jan 2026.

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