This policy brief examines how the Arctic is rapidly shifting from a peripheral climate issue into a frontline arena of European strategic competition and what this means for the EU’s enlargement agenda. Driven by climate change, rising tensions with Russia and China, and transatlantic friction, faster ice melt is opening new maritime trade routes and unlocking access to natural resources, including rare earths, placing the Arctic at a unique crossroads of geopolitical pressures.

Trump’s repeated threats to take control of Greenland have rattled Denmark and exposed cracks in transatlantic trust, triggering an unexpected chain reaction: Iceland is now seriously reconsidering EU membership, with a referendum on reopening accession talks scheduled for 29 August 2026. Iceland has no standing army and relies on a bilateral defence agreement with the United States a dependence that Trump’s transactional approach has politicised, prompting Reykjavik to look elsewhere for long-term security guarantees.

The brief argues that a renewed Iceland accession track could inject fresh momentum into the broader enlargement debate at a time when enlargement is increasingly viewed through a geopolitical lens, while also raising important questions about how the EU balances strategic opportunities with fairness toward existing candidates, particularly in the Western Balkans. The authors conclude that Brussels must seize the moment in Reykjavik without derailing its core enlargement priorities in the Western Balkans and Ukraine.