Two days after Ursula von der Leyen announced the possibility of a high-level agreement between the European Union and Canada before the Parliament in Strasbourg, Donald Trump has made a move in the Arctic, unilaterally revealing an agreement with Denmark to subject the security of the island of Greenland to the "control" of the United States.
It remains to be seen if Canada will decide to associate with the European Union, but something is moving. We will have to read the fine print of the Greenland agreement, but something was moving when the Danish Prime Minister, the social democrat Mette Frederiksen, decided to lash out at the Spanish socialist Pedro Sánchez over the Ceuta crisis. When Frederiksen, along with Giorgia Meloni, pushed for a letter condemning Spain's migration policy, she was negotiating a delicate pact with Washington over Greenland and finalizing an agreement with Rabat to recognize Morocco's sovereignty over Western Sahara.
In early September, the new British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, a Labour member, spoke out for greater integration of the United Kingdom into the European Union, without fully reversing Brexit. Integration without accession. An associated state model, like the one being considered for Canada. On the 12th of this month, Trump emphatically defended the reunification of the island of Ireland, that is, the definitive secession of Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom. Trump was in Dublin to play golf.
Also in Ireland, the President of the United States questioned British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, an old dispute with Argentina that led to war in 1982. A war in which Argentina was militarily humiliated. Javier Milei is once again claiming the Falklands. Now there is oil involved: an underwater field. Trump says he is willing to mediate. The American president questioned in Dublin the capacity of the British to send troops to the Falklands.
Two days after these statements, Scottish independence supporters, Welsh nationalists, and representatives of Northern Ireland's Sinn Féin met in Cardiff (Wales) to share their demands, asking the British Government to facilitate constitutional changes to allow self-determination referendums in the three territories. All three want full integration into the European Union. The meeting was planned in advance, but it coincided with Trump's maneuver to shake British territorial integrity.
In the opposite direction, Washington has supported Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla, following the human avalanche at the end of July. They did not do so immediately. Their first reaction was to turn Ceuta into an electoral spot for the Republican Party. "This is what will happen to us if the Democratic Party wins again," said an impactful video-tweet by Elon Musk. Months earlier, the veteran Republican congressman Mario Díaz-Balart, of Cuban origin, placed Ceuta and Melilla in Moroccan territory and called for their status to be redefined. On August 6, the State Department settled the matter, reaffirming the United States' support for Spanish sovereignty in Ceuta and Melilla.
Vox claims to have worked in favor of that declaration, as reported by La Vanguardia last Sunday. In parallel, the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, an entity highly influential in the White House today, also spoke out in favor of the Spanishness of Ceuta and Melilla. Behind this was the Disenso foundation, the think tank of Vox, a party that has also been in dialogue with the Israeli government regarding Ceuta and Melilla. Vox currently maintains a very tough stance with Morocco, an unconditional ally of the United States and increasingly a friend of Israel. This week, both countries have agreed to open embassies.
More relevant movements. Alternative for Germany (AfD), a rising force, is interested in South Tyrol, a German-speaking territory of the former Austro-Hungarian empire that was annexed by Italy at the end of the First World War. Südtirol today enjoys broad autonomy within the Trentino-Alto Adige region, bordering Austria. A youth delegation from the Südtiroler Freiheit (South Tyrolean Freedom) party, which advocates for secession, participated in August in the congress of the AfD's youth movement titled Generation Deutschland. There were calls for self-determination. Pan-Germanism in action.
More relevant details. Republican congressman Carlos A. Giménez, also of Cuban origin like Díaz-Balart, published the following message on X this week: "From the United States Congress, we denounce the political persecution that the patriots of Aliança Catalana are facing from Pedro Sánchez's regime in La Moncloa and his communist socialist allies in Barcelona."
