BRUSSELS — After years of being treated as an outlier for its hardline stance on migration, Denmark says it has finally brought the rest of the EU on board with its tough approach. Europe’s justice and home affairs ministers on Monday approved new measures allowing EU countries to remove failed asylum seekers, set up processing centers overseas and create removal hubs outside their borders — measures Copenhagen has long advocated. The deal was “many years in the making,” said Rasmus Stoklund, Denmark’s center-left minister for integration who has driven migration negotiations during his country’s six-month presidency of the Council of the EU. Stoklund told POLITICO that when he first started working on the migration brief a decade ago in the Danish parliament, his fellow left-wingers around the bloc viewed his government’s position as so egregious that “other social democrats wouldn’t meet with me.” Over the last few years, “there’s been a huge change in perception,” Stoklund said. When the deal was done Monday, the “sigh of relief” from ministers and their aides was palpable, with people embracing one another and heaping praise on both the Danish brokers and Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission that put forward the initial proposal, according to a diplomat who was in the room. Sweden’s Migration Minister Johan Forssell, a member of the conservative Moderate party, told POLITICO Monday’s deal was vital “to preserve, like, any public trust at all in the migration system today … we need to show that the system is working.” Stockholm, which has in the past prided itself on taking a liberal approach to migration, has recently undergone a Damascene conversion to the Danish model, implementing tough measures to limit family reunification, tightening rules around obtaining Swedish citizenship, and limiting social benefits for new arrivals. Forssell said the deal was important because “many people” around Europe criticize the EU over inaction on migration “because they cannot do themselves what [should be done] on the national basis.” The issue, he said, is a prime example of “why there must be a strong European Union.” SEALING THE DEAL Monday’s deal — whose impact will “hopefully be quite dramatic,” Stoklund said — comes two years after the EU signed off on a new law governing asylum and migration, which must be implemented by June. Voters have “made clear to governments all over the European Union, that they couldn’t accept that they weren’t able to control the access to their countries,” Stoklund said. “Governments have realized that if they didn’t take this question seriously, then [voters] would back more populist movements that would take it seriously — and use more drastic measures in order to find new solutions.” Stockholm has recently undergone a Damascene conversion to the Danish model, implementing tough measures to limit family reunification, tightening rules around obtaining Swedish citizenship, and limiting social benefits for new arrivals. | Henrick Montgomery/EPA Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner, the Danish Council presidency and ministers were at pains to point out that Monday’s agreement showed the EU could get deals done. After the last EU election in 2024, the new Commission’s “first task” was to “bring our European house in order,” Brunner said. “Today we’re showing that Europe can actually deliver and we delivered quite a lot.” WHAT’S NEW The ministers backed new rules to detain and deport migrants, including measures that would allow the bloc and individual countries to cut deals to set up migration processing hubs in other nations, regardless of whether the people being moved there have a connection with those countries. Ministers supported changes that will allow capitals to reject applications if asylum seekers, prior to first entering the EU, could have received international protection in a non-EU country the bloc deems safe, and signed off on a common list of countries of origin considered safe. Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco and Tunisia are on that latter list, as are countries that are candidates to join the EU. But the deal also leaves room for exceptions — such as Ukraine, which is at war. Asylum seekers won’t automatically have the right to remain in the EU while they appeal a ruling that their refuge application was inadmissible. The next step for the measures will be negotiations with the European Parliament, once it has decided its position on the proposals. Max Griera contributed reporting.

European Council President António Costa intends to summon EU leaders to an informal retreat in rural Belgium next February to discuss Europe’s competitiveness. The meeting of the bloc’s heads of state and government will take place on Feb. 12 at Alden Biesen Castle, a XVI century moated complex in the eastern Belgian region of Limburg, Costa said in an interview with Portuguese daily Expresso. The informal summit on competitiveness will take place just a few months after the leaders debated the European Commission’s proposal to foster a pan-European industrial revival by merging cash for research, defense and innovation in the EU’s 2028-2035 budget. Shortly before taking office a year ago, the Council president said he wanted to organize periodic, informal meetings of EU leaders where they could discuss broad, strategic topics without the need to reach definitive conclusions. The objective was to create space for the kinds of debates that regularly derailed official summits chaired by Costa’s predecessor, Charles Michel. Although Costa wanted to hold the retreats outside the Belgian capital, security concerns obliged him to hold the first of these events in Brussels’ central Egmont Palace last February. During that session, EU leaders discussed issues related to the wider topic of European defense. Last week the bloc’s leaders attended an informal meeting in Luanda, Angola, where talks focused on the ongoing efforts to secure a lasting peace in Ukraine. During the wide-ranging interview with Expresso, which marked his first year in the Council presidency, Costa said the greatest challenge he has faced was that of stabilizing relations between the EU and U.S. President Donald Trump. That goal, he said, had been achieved, but he acknowledged that the dynamics between Brussels and Washington are “different” than they once were. Costa said it was essential for the EU to “remain calm, serene, and continue to strive to be constructive” when dealing with Trump, and noted that the relationship between Brussels and Washington is not “between equals.” The EU, he noted, is made up of 27 member countries “each with its own policies and interests,” while the U.S. operates as a single, federal entity.

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s environment ministers struck a deal watering down a proposed 2040 target for cutting planet-warming emissions and set a new 2035 climate plan. Following marathon negotiations all day Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, ministers unanimously approved the bloc’s long-overdue climate plan, rescuing the EU from the international embarrassment of showing up empty handed this month’s COP30 summit. The plan, which is a requirement under the Paris Agreement, sets a new goal to slash EU emissions between 66.25 percent and 72.5 percent below 1990 levels until 2035. That plan is not legally binding but sets the direction of EU climate policy for the coming five years. The range is similar to an informal statement that the EU presented at a climate summit in New York in September. Ministers also adopted a legally-binding target for cutting emissions in the EU by 85 percent by 2040. The deal mandates that another 5 percent reduction be achieved by outsourcing pollution cuts abroad through the purchase of international carbon credits. On top of that, governments would be allowed to use credits to outsource another 5 percentage points of their national emissions reduction goals. Ministers also backed a wide-ranging review clause that allows the EU to adjust its 2040 target in the future if climate policy proves to have negative impacts on the EU’s economy. The deal also foresees a one-year delay to the implementation of the EU’s new carbon market for heating and car emissions, which is set to start in 2027. Hungary, Slovakia and Poland did not support the 2040 deal, while Bulgaria and Belgium abstained. The rest of the EU27 countries backed it. Lawmakers in the European Parliament now have to agree on their own position on the 2040 climate target and negotiate with the Council of the EU before the target becomes law. 

BRUSSELS — A weeks-long stalemate holding up the latest package of sanctions against Russia was ended Wednesday night after Slovakia lifted its veto, the Danish presidency of the Council of the EU confirmed. The bulk of the package — the 19th to be imposed on Moscow since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago — focuses on sapping the Kremlin’s war chest by imposing restrictions on energy traders and financial institutions, many of them in third countries. Companies helping the Russian war effort will be targeted, in addition to 117 new tankers considered to be part of the shadow fleet that ships Russian fossil fuels in violation of the oil price cap. Earlier this week, energy ministers from 27 member countries agreed by qualified majority to a landmark phaseout of Russian gas, against the objections of Slovakia and Hungary. Slovakia had vowed to hold up the sanctions package unless it was given assurances on how to combat high energy prices and aid heavy industries like car making. Austria and Hungary had also expressed concerns over the sanctions package but lifted their veto in recent days. Slovakia was the last country blocking the new restrictions — and had sought concessions in the statement to be agreed at Thursday’s summit of EU leaders in Brussels. “All our demands … were included [in the statement],” a Slovak diplomat confirmed to POLITICO. The summit will seek to stress the EU’s support of Ukraine, in light of U.S. President Donald Trump’s pressure on Kyiv to cede territory to Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to join parts of the meeting in Brussels. Leaders are expected to emphasize the need to further hit Moscow with hefty sanctions over its war against Ukraine. Defense spending as well as the use of frozen Russian assets to support Kyiv are all on the agenda. The sanctions package will also significantly expand the number of non-Russian companies banned from doing business with the bloc in a bid to prevent Moscow from circumventing the restrictions. Defense spending as well as the use of frozen Russian assets to support Kyiv are all on the agenda. | Sergey Shestak/EPA Specifically, the bloc seeks to add export controls on another 45 companies that are deemed to be working together to evade sanctions. Those include 12 Chinese, two Thai and three Indian entities that have enabled Russia to circumvent the bloc’s sanctions. The package also restricts the movement of Russian diplomats within the EU. They will have to notify other EU governments of their movements before crossing the border of their host country. The package will now go through a so-called written procedure, where capitals have until Thursday morning to speak up. If no one does, the text is approved.

The European Commission will work on technical and financial details to build a drone wall to protect Europe against Russia, after a series of airspace violations by Moscow’s warplanes and unmanned aerial vehicles. “Today the frontline EU member states expressed their resolution in close coordination with NATO to work together to forge a united response against growing threats from Russia everywhere in Europe,” Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told POLITICO in a statement after a virtual meeting with eastern flank defense ministers. “Our response must be firm, united, and immediate. The Eastern Flank Watch that was announced by the President [Ursula] von der Leyen, would benefit all of Europe,” the statement continues. “In order to make this project operational as soon as possible, we will need to take swift action at the political, technical, financial levels, and in mobilizing our industry.” On Friday, the Commission gathered defense ministers from Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania. Hungary, Slovakia and the Danish Council presidency were also represented. In a separate meeting where NATO was present as an observer, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal briefed them on his country’s “battle-tested expertise.” Participants agreed the drone wall should include detection, tracking and interception capabilities, the Commission said. Other assets should include ground-based defenses, such as anti-mobility systems, maritime security as well as space-based situational awareness. In a bid to bring Southern European countries and those more distant from Russia on board, both the European Commission and front-line nations insisted that Russian drones posed a risk to the bloc as a whole, not only Central and Eastern Europe. The drone incursions in Denmark — which the government says may be linked to Russia — show that “the threat is not limited to the eastern flank, that drones could be launched from a nearby ship or vessel,” Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said. The drone wall will be on the agenda of next week’s informal EU leaders’ meeting in Copenhagen. The Commission will now come up with “a detailed technical roadmap with national experts” as well as “build a comprehensive EU financial toolbox to make this shield a reality.” The project could be funded by the €150 billion loans-for-weapons SAFE scheme and the €1.5 billion European Defence Industry Program (EDIP), but Brussels is also looking at other options. Ukraine, which has more than three years of battlefield experience against Russian drones, is ready to participate and provide expertise, including by sending technical teams to train EU and NATO armed forces, Shmyhal said. “Together with our allies, we will coordinate our counteraction to Russian provocations in the sky … We also discussed the participation of Ukrainian manufacturers in the project,” he added. Ukraine and the EU will sign a joint declaration in October. The drone wall idea was first floated last year but picked up steam earlier this month during von der Leyen’s State of the Union speech amid a growing raft of suspected Russian incursions across NATO countries. In the past month, UAVs have violated Polish, Romanian, Danish and Norwegian airspace; in the Polish case expensive missiles were used to shoot down at least three cheap Russian drones. The military alliance was forced to dispatch several fighter jets after three Russian MiG-31s aircraft loitered in Estonian airspace for 12 minutes. The incidents have highlighted the gaps in NATO arsenals. On Wednesday night, Denmark again had to close two airports in reaction to a fresh incursion, with drones also spotted across military bases and the country’s oil and gas platforms in the North Sea. The Kremlin has denied any involvement. While Kubilius previously said the drone wall could be operational in a year, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former NATO secretary-general and Danish prime minister, said that was “too slow.” Speaking at an online press briefing Friday, he said: “We do have capabilities to intercept drones. So it’s a question of deploying them, it’s a question of purchasing them. It’s a question of investment. So that’s why I urge governments to really speed up.”

Denmark summoned the top U.S. diplomat in Copenhagen on Wednesday after Danish media reported that Americans with ties to President Donald Trump had carried out covert influence operations in Greenland. Danish broadcaster DR reported that at least three U.S. citizens linked to the U.S. government were involved in activities that, reportedly, authorities fear could be used covertly to support Trump’s desire to make Greenland part of the United States. Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said the U.S. chargé d’affaires — currently its most senior diplomat in Denmark — had been summoned in response. He called any interference in Danish affairs “unacceptable,” and emphasized that Copenhagen “will of course not accept covert operations on our territory,” in a statement emailed by his ministry, according to the AP. “It worries me greatly because we do not spy on friends,” Rasmussen also said in response to a report in The Wall Street Journal. According to DR, one of the men compiled lists of Greenlanders supportive of, or critical toward, U.S. influence, while others maintained political and business contacts on the island. It was unclear whether they acted independently or under direction from U.S. officials. The move comes amid ongoing tensions over Greenland, a mineral-rich, self-governing Danish territory. Earlier this year, Trump told CNN that Washington would “100 percent” gain control of Greenland, even repeatedly threatening to use military force. Greenland is strategically important for U.S. military and Arctic security interests. Contacted by DR, Denmark’s security and intelligence service, known as PET, said the territory “is the target of influence campaigns of various kinds” and had strengthened monitoring in cooperation with Greenlandic authorities.

Denmark is prepared to face down the European Parliament over tougher migration rules, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told lawmakers as her country takes up the six-month presidency of the Council of the EU. “We have to lower the influx of migrants to Europe,” she said in Strasbourg on Tuesday. Frederiksen has built a reputation as the black sheep of European social democrats because she often sides with the right in pushing forward tougher rules on asylum and border checks. “What has been mainstream among our populations for quite many years is now mainstream for many of us politicians as well, finally,” she said. “Maybe not in Parliament, but gladly, and I am really happy about that, in the European Council,” where several leaders of EU countries leaders are determined to address migration problems. In pushing for a tougher approach Frederiksen finds herself on the same side as right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and center-right Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The Parliament ― the bloc’s only directly elected body ― is more divided than Europe’s governments, however. With a right-wing bloc pushing for stricter rules, and a center-left bloc opposing them, it will be complicated for the house’s centrist political families to come to any agreement on legislation. Following the EU election in June last year, which saw a surge in support to right-wing and far-right parties elected on an anti-migration base, the European Commission announced it would propose rules that would increase deportations, as well as a revision of the safe third country concept to allow for easier returns of migrants to countries they are not originally from. It would also make it easier for countries to set up so-called return hubs. TOUGH PRIORITY Migration is one of the topics where the center-right European People’s Party could bypass its traditional mainstream allies and use the support of right-wing and far-right groups. “It is challenging Europe, affecting people’s lives, and the cohesion of our societies,” Frederiksen said. “We saw it very clearly in the European Parliament elections last year. Migration was a tough priority for many Europeans, including myself.” Denmark, whose EU presidency will run until the end of 2025, will prioritize the proposals the Commission has already set out, and also “provide a much more effective response to Russia,” which, Frederiksen said, was “using migration as a weapon at our eastern borders.” “Our citizens expect us politicians to find new solutions with a good reason and European citizens have a right to feel safe in their own countries,” she said. “That is why we need to strengthen our external borders.”

GREENLAND IS THE WILD CARD IN DENMARK’S BRUSSELS REIGN Donald Trump’s claims on the island nation could derail Copenhagen’s EU Council presidency at any time. By JACOB BARIGAZZI Photo-Illustration Matthieu Bourel for POLITICO This article is part of the Danish Presidency of the EU special report. Denmark is taking the helm of EU affairs. Just don’t tell Donald Trump. That’s a joke being passed around in Brussels as the government in Copenhagen prepares to launch its presidency of the Council of the EU but looks to avoid a war of words — or worse, a war — with the U.S. president over Greenland. The fear among some diplomats and officials is that Trump could use the greater visibility of Denmark, which counts Greenland as a territory, to dial up his provocations. Copenhagen is trying to keep a low profile, instead talking up its EU agenda on migration, defense, security and climate. Since taking office, Trump has made outlandish claims on Greenland, citing security reasons for aiming to gain control over the mineral-rich, self-ruling Danish territory — and even threatening repeatedly to use military force. “We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 percent,” he told CNN as late as March. Trump might resort to similar sound and fury “if the focus [on Denmark] is much higher and if Donald Trump really finds out what the [EU Council] presidency is,” said Rasmus Grand Berthelsen, senior director at Rasmussen Global, a political consultancy firm. Renewed escalation on the issue would inadvertently draw in the European Union and its national member governments even more. “Clearly, with the Danish presidency, the topic of Greenland sovereignty will naturally become even more prominent,” Brando Benifei, chair of the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with the United States, told POLITICO. But “it is already a red line for the European governments and for all the institutions: Any attack to Greenland freedoms is an attack to Europe.” Denmark has been working hard to avoid further confrontation with the U.S. on the issue. One Danish official with insight into the preparation of the presidency, granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking, said: “We do not expect the U.S. administration’s approach to Greenland to influence the Danish presidency of the Council. From the outset, we have received clear support from the EU institutions and Member States on this matter. “Even in a situation where it could be of interest to discuss issues related to Greenland at a European level, this would be the prerogative of the European Council [of EU leaders] and the Foreign Affairs Council [gathering foreign ministers], which are not chaired by the rotating presidency of the Council,” the Danish official said. TRUMP-SPLAINING THE EU COUNCIL It’s one of the EU’s most famous and famously misunderstood quirks: There’s a Council of the EU (or EU Council), where different levels of national governments meet, as well as a European Council gathering heads of state and government, and finally a Council of Europe. All are distinct institutions; the latter isn’t even an EU organization. For the U.S. president’s context: Denmark holds the six-month-long rotating presidency of the EU Council from July to December this year, succeeding Poland and preceding Cyprus. It organizes meetings of national government representatives from the technical level all the way up to ministerial meetings, among other tasks. Denmark’s presidency kicks off just days after NATO’s June 24-25 summit in The Hague, where allies are expected to agree on a new defense spending target of 5 percent of national gross domestic product. The Danish presidency will play a key role in negotiating legislative files that will determine how European Union members scale up their defenses.   But in Brussels, diplomats fear Trump’s threats to Greenland could pop up at any time and blow Copenhagen’s agenda wide open. Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan “has become a geographical concept; he wants to go down in history as the man who has made America ‘greater’ — in geographical terms,” said an EU diplomat who was granted anonymity to speak freely. Denmark’s plan for if that happens: Keep a cool head. When U.S. Vice President JD Vance accused Denmark of underinvesting in Greenland, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen responded with a video in English saying: “Of course we are open to criticism … But let me be completely honest: We do not appreciate the tone in which it is being delivered.” Denmark has even hired a lobbying company to help make its voice heard in the U.S. capital, according to press reports. EU leaders meanwhile have expressed solidarity with Denmark. The most likely response to any new escalation would be a text agreed by European heads of state.  EMBRACING GREENLAND For years, Denmark had an opt-out from participating in the EU’s common defense policy. But after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Danish citizens voted to remove the opt-outs. That has made Denmark, together with more recent NATO members Sweden and Finland, part of a bloc of countries that are fully integrated into both the transatlantic alliance and the EU’s defense policy. All three are also close to the Baltics and strongly support Ukraine. Trump’s threats have convinced Denmark’s socialist Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of the need for a strong EU, said one official with knowledge of Frederiksen’s thinking. One question is whether the bloc will ever include Greenland itself. The island withdrew from a predecessor of the European Union, called the European Community, in 1985 after securing home rule from Denmark.  The Arctic country — the world’s largest island that isn’t a continent — is home to the Pituffik Space Base, a U.S.-operated installation in the northwest of Greenland. Pituffik is one of the most strategically important military sites in the world; if Russian President Vladimir Putin were to send missiles toward the U.S., their shortest route would be via the North Pole and Greenland.  One option would be to try to get Greenland back on board, said former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis: “Invite Greenland back into the EU and I think that that would …. potentially change Trump’s narratives.”