By Andrew Gray
NUUK, Sept 6 (Reuters) - European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled plans on Monday for €200 million ($232 million) of EU investments in Greenland and closer ties with the Danish Arctic territory, which President Donald Trump has 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 United States, Russia, China and Europe, as melting ice opens new shipping routes to make the region’s mineral wealth more accessible.
TRUMP'S PUSH TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND SPARKED CRISIS
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 defence 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 United States, 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 Turkey in July, Trump restated his insistence that the U.S. should control Greenland.
'TECTONIC PLATES OF GEOPOLITICS COLLIDE'
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 in its current seven-year budget to €530 million for the period 2028-2034.
($1 = 0.8604 euros)
(Reporting by Andrew Gray; additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Alison Williams)
