According to the head of the think tank, whose headquarters is in Oxford, Great Britain, the internal division of European countries is evidenced by the reaction to the announcement of 10 percent punitive tariffs that Trump wants to impose on the countries of the northern part of the continent.
“There are 21 other member states [UE]which were not subject to sanctions. One of them is Italy. Giorgia Meloni has already said that she has told Trump that his threat to impose tariffs is a mistake. I think so too. But will Meloni break with the president over a piece of land that is far away and irrelevant to Italy's security and economy? And Spain? And Greece? What about Malta and Cyprus?” wrote Muenchau.
Why do experts think Trump will take over Greenland?
What are the reasons for Europe's weakness according to Muenchau?
What do European leaders think about Trump's tariffs?
What were the reasons for Greenland's exit from the EU?
“Europeans have never really been interested in Greenland”
The German analyst also asks rhetorically whether “Viktor Orban, Andrej Babisz and Robert Fico – the populist prime ministers of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, will come to the rescue of their liberal friends in Denmark?”
“Even Poland, whose government is as pro-European as possible, is unlikely to sacrifice its strategic alliance with America for a few icy rocks near the Arctic,” surmises the co-founder of Eurointelligence.
The director of the think tank said in a comment published on the UnHerd website that “Europeans have never really been interested in Greenland.”
“It was the first country to leave the EU – in 1985, long before Brexit. It left the EU because the EU's fisheries policy would have deprived it of the right to manage its own resources. Greenland could have been part of the EU if it really wanted to keep it,” Muenchau wrote, emphasizing that fishing accounts for more than 90 percent. island exports. Based on these premises, the German analyst put forward the thesis that “Trump will win the fight for Greenland.”
“Europeans will not stop him because they are weak and divided. The irony is that the EU itself chose this military and geostrategic weakness. It decided to deprive our armed forces of essential resources in favor of social transfers and support for non-governmental organizations,” Muenchau said.
He added that “regulations on ecology and technology have not changed the world for the better, but have only harmed Europe's competitiveness.” “As a result, unlike China and America, Europe will not participate in the artificial intelligence boom. The EU in its current form is further from becoming a superpower than it was 30 years ago,” says the analyst.
“The EU was never intended to be a military alliance”
Referring to the principle used in the world of sports that the strength of a team is determined by its weakest link, the director of Eurointelligence expressed his belief that the weakest EU member state is Germany.
“Given the state of the German economy and its dependence on the United States, it would be absolute madness for the EU to retaliate against Trump's tariffs,” Muenchau said.
According to the head of Eurointelligence, the EU and Great Britain are more afraid of blocking the trade agreements with the US that were negotiated last year than “Trump is trembling with fear” because of this.
“The EU was never intended to be a military alliance, but it had the chance to become an economic alliance.” To achieve this goal, it “should have transformed into a political union ten years ago, and the eurozone crisis of 2008–2015 was the last, missed opportunity for the Community to achieve this goal,” Muenchau wrote.
In recent weeks, Trump has stepped up threats to take over Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. The US president emphasizes that the island is very important to the United States for security reasons.
