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Britain is in talks with Nato allies about beefing up the west’s military presence in the Arctic as UK premier Sir Keir Starmer seeks to fend off Donald Trump’s threat to take over Greenland.
Downing Street said the prime minister took growing Russian aggression in the High North “extremely seriously”, as he seeks to persuade Trump that he can secure the region without annexing Greenland.
One British official said: “Nato discussions on reinforcing security in the region continue.” They added that the UK was “working with Nato allies to drive efforts to bolster Arctic deterrence and defence”.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, told reporters that the EU was “accelerating our work” in Greenland as part of efforts to boost “Arctic security”.
“Greenland belongs to its people . . . Nothing about them without them,” von der Leyen said. “But of course it is also a European topic because Arctic security matters enormously to us. And critically it is a topic for Nato.”
“We are investing and we are accelerating our work there,” she added, citing a proposal to double EU funding to the territory in its next shared budget to around €530mn.
EU ambassadors discussed the Greenland crisis last Friday at a meeting in Brussels, and were briefed on how Copenhagen wants to respond to the US threats, officials said.
Trump will be sceptical about the ability of European allies to fend off a Russian or Chinese threat in the region. Lord Peter Mandelson, Britain’s former ambassador to the US, said on Sunday that ultimately that job would fall to the US.
But Starmer has been working to persuade the White House that Britain takes its responsibilities seriously.
Last week the UK took part in the US-led operation to seize the Russian-flagged Marinera tanker off the north west coast of Britain, with the RAF and Royal Navy playing a supporting role.
The British official added: “This year, 1,500 Royal Marines will deploy for Exercise Cold Response across Norway, Finland and Sweden, training with allies to defend key terrain and demonstrate Nato unity.”
Starmer last week refused to criticise Trump over his intervention in Venezuela, focusing instead on ensuring the US president remains focused on providing security guarantees to support any peace deal in Ukraine.
Starmer joined leaders from other European Nato members to declare that the future of Greenland was solely a matter for the people of the island and Denmark, not the US.
Sir Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat leader, said: “The UK should offer to send troops to Greenland as part of a joint Nato operation under Danish and UK command.
“If Trump is serious about security, he’d agree to participate and drop his outrageous threats. Tearing the Nato alliance apart would only play into the hands of Putin.”
But Mandelson told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday programme that “we all know” Trump will not launch an invasion of Greenland and take the Arctic island by force.
Mandelson, who was sacked last September over new revelations about his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, said Europe had to “wake up” to the threat in the Arctic and accept there would now be “discussions, consultation, negotiation” about the US role in Greenland.
“Are we in Europe, we in Britain, prepared to stump up the forces and the radars and the anti-missile systems and the air defence systems to protect Greenland and the Arctic?” he said.
“Are we? No, we are not. And that’s why, at the end of the day, we are going to be dependent on the United States to do so.”