World
Germany's Weber supports Macron’s call for European nuclear deterrent
With fears over NATO’s credibility, the idea of a homegrown alternative is playing into Germany’s domestic political debate.
A French plan to offer a nuclear umbrella to Europe has met with support from the German MEP who heads the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber, playing into the domestic political debate ahead of June EU elections.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the prospect that a second Donald Trump presidency might weaken the transatlantic alliance, has raised the salience of having a homegrown alternative to NATO.
In a TV clip which issued on Thursday (9 May), Weber suggested he favoured plans put forward by French President Emmanuel Macron, and criticised left-wing Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his failure to engage.
“This is an offer of France which we must talk about,” Weber said on a panel hosted by Bavarian TV station BR24, after Macron proposed to extend security guarantees based on nuclear deterrence, adding: “I am disappointed that Olaf Scholz, the federal government, is voiceless, that there is absolutely no answer for this proposal.”
Macron “is broadening the conception of France’s national security from a purely territorial concept into a European one,” Weber said. “He is ready to say: the security order of France is attacked when Lithuania is attacked.”
In a wide-ranging speech on European policy in late April, Macron said France’s nuclear deterrent was an “indispensable element of the defence of the European continent”.
Fears over Europe’s ability to defend itself were raised after Trump suggested he wouldn’t leap to the rescue of allies who didn’t spend enough on their militaries, undermining the treaty commitments that underpin NATO.
France is the only remaining nuclear power within the EU, though it isn’t immediately clear what role Brussels, or MEPs such as Weber, might play in developing the idea.
The European Commission is attempting to coordinate military production by its members to help arm Ukraine, and its President Ursula von der Leyen has said she’ll make defence a central plank of a hoped-for second term in office.
But the EU also includes neutral members such as Ireland and Austria, and is precluded under its founding treaties from buying weapons directly.
In February, Scholz – a socialist who leads a coalition that also includes the green and liberal parties – told German newspaper the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “I don’t think much of this debate” concerning a European nuclear guarantee, citing NATO membership and the country’s decision not to seek its own atomic weapons.
Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered tests of tactical nuclear weapons, in an apparent warning to Ukraine’s allies to back off.
World
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World
Greenland leaders push back on Trump’s calls for US control of the island: ‘We don’t want to be Americans’
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Greenland’s leadership is pushing back on President Donald Trump as he and his administration call for the U.S. to take control of the island. Several Trump administration officials have backed the president’s calls for a takeover of Greenland, with many citing national security reasons.
“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said in a statement Friday night, according to The Associated Press. Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory and a longtime U.S. ally, has repeatedly rejected Trump’s statements about U.S. acquiring the island.
Greenland’s party leaders reiterated that the island’s “future must be decided by the Greenlandic people.”
“As Greenlandic party leaders, we would like to emphasize once again our wish that the United States’ contempt for our country ends,” the statement said.
TRUMP SAYS US IS MAKING MOVES TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND ‘WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT’
Greenland has rejected the Trump administration’s push to take over the Danish territory. (Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix / AFP via Getty Images; Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump was asked about the push to acquire Greenland on Friday during a roundtable with oil executives. The president, who has maintained that Greenland is vital to U.S. security, said it was important for the country to make the move so it could beat its adversaries to the punch.
“We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” Trump said Friday. “Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor.”
Trump hosted nearly two dozen oil executives at the White House on Friday to discuss investments in Venezuela after the historic capture of President Nicolás Maduro on Jan. 3.
“We don’t want to have Russia there,” Trump said of Venezuela on Friday when asked if the nation appears to be an ally to the U.S. “We don’t want to have China there. And, by the way, we don’t want Russia or China going to Greenland, which, if we don’t take Greenland, you can have Russia or China as your next-door neighbor. That’s not going to happen.”
Trump said the U.S. is in control of Venezuela after the capture and extradition of Maduro.
Nielsen has previously rejected comparisons between Greenland and Venezuela, saying that his island was looking to improve its relations with the U.S., according to Reuters.
A “Make America Go Away” baseball cap, distributed for free by Danish artist Jens Martin Skibsted, is arranged in Sisimiut, Greenland, on March 30, 2025. (Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
FROM CARACAS TO NUUK: MADURO RAID SPARKS FRESH TRUMP PUSH ON GREENLAND
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Monday that Trump’s threats to annex Greenland could mean the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
“I also want to make it clear that if the U.S. chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops. Including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War,” Frederiksen told Danish broadcaster TV2.
That same day, Nielsen said in a statement posted on Facebook that Greenland was “not an object of superpower rhetoric.”
Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen stands next to Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a visit to the Danish Parliament in Copenhagen on April 28, 2025. (Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)
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White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller doubled down on Trump’s remarks, telling CNN in an interview on Monday that Greenland “should be part of the United States.”
CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed Miller about whether the Trump administration could rule out military action against the Arctic island.
“The United States is the power of NATO. For the United States to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend NATO and NATO interests, obviously Greenland should be part of the United States,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
World
What Canada, accustomed to extreme winters, can teach Europe
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