The Greenland Effect: Why Europe cannot convert pressure into drive — and how it could.
Right now, as the world watches the United States redefine its strategic interests in the Arctic—particularly with regard to Greenland—Europe is confronted with a painful question: Who are we in this new geopolitical reality?
The push concerning Greenland is not merely a regional power shift; it marks the end of an era in which we could rely on transatlantic stability and shared values. Alongside Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, a faltering economy, persistently high energy prices and inflation, this development makes it especially clear: the old order is breaking apart and Europe has yet to find a new narrative.
Yet we do not lack the means — only imagination.
We are in a brutally disruptive phase for which our administrative structures are neither mentally nor systemically prepared. While some seek salvation in the arms industry, others see Europe reduced to nothing more than a vast leisure zone for the global middle and upper classes. Both responses are reactions to loss—not visions of gain.
Even though a few courageous voices insist we must stop badmouthing everything (in which we may already be world champions and intend to remain so), what is missing is not only radical willingness for reform, but above all imagination and communication skills to sharpen and spread positive visions of the future—images of a European future that we love. That we find awesome. That we eagerly want to roll up our sleeves for and keep building.
Europe has lost its imagination. But it wasn’t always like this. Even amid the ruins of the Second World War, some visionary minds considered it conceivable that this shattered continent would dissolve its borders within a few decades and introduce a common currency. How insane that future vision must have seemed back then.
Today, as Greenland illustrates how quickly geopolitical certainties can vanish, the question becomes more urgent than ever: Where are these vivid, relatable future images for Europe? Where is the energizing vision for 2036?
Where are the ambitious goals and the lavish scenarios that go beyond mere defence or administration?
When Europe is perceived by people merely as a bureaucratic apparatus of prevention and regulation, enthusiasm sinks even below that for highway traffic jams on the way to vacation.
Does Europe—or rather the European Union—have an image problem or an effectiveness deficit? Probably both. What is missing are successes that are “close to the people” and tangibly improve people’s lives. Much of what is good happens on legal and political meta-levels that never reach (or can reach) most citizens.
In ancient Rome, the cynical strategy of “bread and circuses” (panem et circenses) was perfected: the rulers threw enough basic food and bloody spectacles at the people to distract them from genuine political participation, dampen discontent, and cement their own power—a form of negative diversion politics that ultimately contributed to the disenfranchisement and decline of the Republic.
That is precisely not what we need today. But the psychological dynamic behind it is similar—and valuable when turned on its head:
Instead of manipulation through cheap distraction, we can today invest in genuine, tangible quality of life and in identity-building, pride-inspiring measures.
Europeans must once again experience Europe as a real improvement in their everyday lives—just as they did back then after the hated border controls disappeared. Only then can genuine enthusiasm, genuine attachment and genuine willingness to get involved emerge.
And they must feel that Europe—in a world where even Greenland has become a strategic plaything—has its own, self-confident role to play.
What makes Europe better today? And what does it promise for tomorrow—not merely as a reaction to others, but as its own, inspiring story?
Perhaps this will become exactly the “Greenland Effect”: a final wake-up call that lifts Europe out of its passive comfort zone and its nation-state pettiness. Instead of continuing to watch from the sidelines, this situation could force us to reinvent ourselves—as a continent that does not merely administer, but leads.
With a vision bigger than the sum of its parts, and one that finally makes us proud again to be Europeans.
Let’s make it real.
Hannes Offenbacher
Entrepreneur, disruptive fictionist
and initiator of A FUTURE WE LOVE
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