Poland joins UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain in calling for US to respect Greenland’s sovereignty

Jan 6, 2026 | Defence, Politics

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has joined the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Denmark in issuing a joint statement calling for Greenland’s sovereignty to be respected, following Donald Trump’s renewed calls for the island to be brought under US control.

Separately, Tusk also today warned Washington that “any attempts to undermine the essence of NATO” by “threatening another member” of the alliance would be met with opposition from Europe.

Tusk and fellow prime ministers Giorgia Meloni of Italy, Pedro Sánchez of Spain, Mette Frederiksen of Denmark and Keir Starmer of the UK, as well as France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, issued a joint statement on Tuesday.

“It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” they wrote. “The Kingdom of Denmark – including Greenland – is part of NATO…[and] Greenland belongs to its people.”

“Security in the Arctic must be achieved collectively, in conjunction with NATO allies including the United States, by upholding the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders. These are universal principles, and we will not stop defending them.”

 

Trump has long coveted Greenland, which is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. He argues that US control over the island is vital for national security.

In the wake of last week’s dramatic strikes on Venezuela, which saw US forces capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, Trump and figures associated with him have reiterated their desire for control over Greenland.

“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security,” said Trump on Sunday night. “Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.”

Speaking today to CNN, Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said that “obviously Greenland should be part of the US” and confirmed that this is “the formal position of the US government”. He argued that “nobody’s going to fight the US over the future of Greenland” because the US “is the power of NATO”.

Both the Danish and Greenlandic governments have strongly rejected US claims over the territory, with Frederiksen declaring that “the US has no right to annex any of…the Danish kingdom”.

After arriving in Paris today for talks with other leaders on the war in Ukraine, Tusk said that the Greenland issue had now become “an unforeseen and unplanned topic” of their discussions and that “Denmark can count on the solidarity of all of Europe”.

“For Poland, it is clear…that no member of NATO should attack or threaten another member,” he added. “I would like it to be clear to everyone in Washington that any attempts to dismantle or undermine the essence of NATO will not be accepted in probably every European country.”

However, at the same time, Tusk said that it was vital for both NATO and Poland “to ensure that European-American ties – the very foundation of NATO and of our security – are not damaged in the coming days and months by any announcements, decisions or misunderstandings”.

Tusk, who has been publicly critical of Trump in the past, has enjoyed an uneasy relationship with the White House since Trump’s return last year. By contrast, Poland’s right-wing president, Karol Nawrocki, is a close ally of Trump – and an opponent of Tusk’s government.

Nawrocki has not commented publicly on US actions in Venezuela or the subsequent rhetoric regarding Greenland. However, his chief security aide, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, said that the strikes on Caracas had been “a demonstration of America’s strength”.

“If we assume that America defends its interests, then what happened in Caracas is something natural and stems from the recently announced US National Security Strategy,” Cenckiewicz told broadcaster Republika. “It is very interesting how quickly implementation has occurred.”

Meanwhile, a senior figure from the national-conservative opposition opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, with which Nawrocki is aligned, suggested in the wake of the US capture of Maduro that Tusk, who PiS claims is seeking to introduce a dictatorship in Poland, could be next.

“Look how dictators end up, Donald Tusk,” wrote Mariusz Kamiński, a former interior minister, on social media alongside a picture (which turned out to be fake) of Maduro in US custody.

Tusk and figures from his ruling coalition condemned Kamiński’s comments, saying that he appeared to be suggesting there could be foreign intervention against Poland’s democratically elected government.

“They’ve stopped believing in their victory in democratic elections, so they have begun to pray for foreign intervention to overthrow the ‘dictatorship of Tusk’,” wrote the prime minister on social media. “One can’t fall lower.”


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: KPRM (under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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