Thanks for reading Wednesday’s Rapporteur. This is Eddy Wax, with Nicoletta Ionta in Brussels.

Need-to-knows:

🟢 US watered down security guarantees to Ukraine, documents show

🟢 Trump ignores Europe’s main powers over Greenland

🟢 Farm ministers seek EU budget concessions in return for backing Mercosur

Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen are selling last night's agreement on post-war security guarantees for Ukraine as a diplomatic breakthrough.

In a declaration of intent, France, the UK and other members of the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” will put boots on the ground after a ceasefire, backed by an American guarantee to ward off any renewed Russian aggression, my colleague Laurent Geslin reported.

Speaking after a meeting in Paris, Macron said the US would take the lead in monitoring any breaches of a future peace, while European forces would be stationed “far from the contact line” with Russia.

Reiterating the document, he added that participating nations stand ready to commit to “politically and legally binding” guarantees to ensure Kyiv could not be coerced into capitulation or threatened again once hostilities end.

Does that mean fighting Russia? The guarantee, the text says, “may include” military action. It’s Article 5 lite, not Article 5-like!

For now, this remains entirely theoretical. Russia has shown resistance to accepting a ceasefire and has already rejected the idea of any European troops on Ukrainian soil, with Vladimir Putin warning that Western forces would be treated as combatants.

There are also signs that the declaration was diluted during negotiations. As my colleague Magnus Lund Nielsen noted, a draft circulated among EU capitals on Monday referred explicitly to a “US commitment to support the force in case of attack,” including intelligence and logistic capabilities. The final text adopted on Tuesday refers only to “the proposed support of the US.”

Another element that eerily vanished concerned continued long-term US military assistance and arms supplies to Ukraine. The American representatives – Special Envoy for Peace Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner – did not sign the declaration on deploying a multinational force, which was signed by Macron, Starmer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Scepticism extends beyond Washington. This declaration would only take effect if a ceasefire emerges, something Moscow shows zero interest in at this stage. Friedrich Merz notably did not sign the declaration and has stayed über cautious on committing any troops to the reassurance force – refusing to propose it until a ceasefire happens and suggesting that any German soldiers would be stationed in neighbouring countries such as Poland or Romania, rather than Ukraine itself.

Zelenskyy described the declaration as a huge step forward, while adding it was “still not enough.” He and Witkoff both acknowledged that territorial questions remain the largest sticking point in US-Ukraine peace talks.

Kushner summed up the mixed bag: “This does not mean that we will make peace, but peace would not be possible without the progress that was made here today.”

In any case, the big question is whether the Europeans would ultimately be prepared to enforce these guarantees and risk the lives of their soldiers. If they're not willing to explicitly commit troops while the war continues, why would they do so in a future crisis?

“The emperor is naked,” quipped foreign policy analyst Ulrich Speck on X.

This document looks less like a cast-iron security guarantee than another bargaining chip in fragile peace negotiations. Ukraine’s 800,000-strong army will likely be the only force protecting their country, and the rest of Europe, from Russia – for a long time to come.

The Greenland war of words

Last night, the White House reiterated that getting Greenland is a “national security priority” for the US, saying it would consider military force.

The statement appeared to be a response to seven European countries – France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the UK and Denmark – which had earlier closed ranks to urge Washington to respect Greenland's sovereignty. Macron said he couldn't envisage a scenario in which America violates the sovereignty of Greenland. “That doesn’t exist,” he told French TV.

Trump’s newly appointed envoy to Greenland, Jeff Landry, had downplayed fears of annexation, rejecting comparisons with Russian-style expansionism. “When has the United States engaged in imperialism? Never,” he said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also sought to soften the rhetoric, telling lawmakers that Washington would prefer to purchase Greenland rather than seize it by force, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, Denmark and Greenland have again requested a meeting with Rubio, Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, wrote on Facebook on Tuesday, adding that repeated attempts to secure talks through 2025 had failed.

Interview: Ex-NATO deputy commander rejects US case for seizing Greenland

The US strike on Venezuela violates the UN Charter and risks pushing the world down a dangerous path, according to Gen Sir Rupert Smith, a former NATO deputy commander. In an interview with Euractiv, Smith warns that regime change is a political rather than military objective – and rejects Washington’s case for annexing Greenland, arguing the US is already protected through NATO.

Farm ministers come to collect their prize money

EU farm ministers meet in Brussels today for a rare “political meeting” convened by Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen, as negotiations to finalise the long-delayed Mercosur trade deal accelerate.

The talks will take place at the Commission’s Berlaymont HQ, rather than across the road under the aegis of the Cypriot Council presidency. One EU diplomat told Rapporteur that this was the Commission flexing its muscles as it pushes to sign the agreement next week in Paraguay.

At the same time, EU capitals are weighing whether to reopen a December deal on agricultural safeguards tied to Mercosur, my colleague Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro reported. Diplomats say ministers will test support today for tightening protections, including lowering the trigger for suspending tariff-free imports of sensitive products such as beef, poultry and sugar from an 8% surge to 5%.

Separately, von der Leyen has tweaked her proposed 2028-2034 EU budget for a second time since its unveiling in June, in an effort to lift Italy’s block on the trade deal.

Under the latest change, around €45 billion earmarked for a 2031 mid-term budget revision would be brought forward to 2028 to support farmers, my colleagues Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro and Jacob Wulff Wold reported.

The move was welcomed by Italy’s farm minister, Francesco Lollobrigida, whose country is now expected to back the agreement in a key vote on Friday.

PARIS 🇫🇷

Emmanuel Macron said last night he still intended to speak with Vladimir Putin, and that it could happen in the "coming weeks.” He floated the idea after a European summit on 18 December. The two leaders last spoke in July 2025, their first call in three years. Kaja Kallas, from Macron’s own liberal political family, strongly opposes talking to the Kremlin, arguing it would not solve anything.

– Eddy Wax

BRUSSELS 🇧🇪

The political scene was rocked by the defection of MP Michel De Maegd from right-wing liberal Reformist Movement (MR) party to the centrist Les Engagés. Both parties are in the governing federal coalition. De Maegd had fallen out with MR’s party leader Georges-Louis Bouchez over Gaza. Bouchez has also had a recent public spat with European Parliament Vice President Sophie Wilmès.

– Eddy Wax

ATHENS 🇬🇷

Maria Karystianou, whose daughter was killed in Greece’s 2023 Tempi train crash, has said a new political party will soon be launched, ruling out cooperation with established politicians. Rising to prominence as a campaigner for accountability after the disaster, she argued that ministers have evaded responsibility through constitutional immunity. While declining to outline an ideology or leadership role, Karystianou said the movement aims to combat corruption. A new entrant could further unsettle the country’s already volatile political landscape.

– Sarantis Michalopoulos

PRAGUE 🇨🇿

Czechia will keep its ammunition initiative for Ukraine alive despite months of domestic political attacks, PM Andrej Babiš said late on Tuesday. Czechia will continue to act as coordinator of the initiative but will not commit funding from its own budget, he added. The decision is expected to be endorsed by the country’s security council today.

– Aneta Zachová

NORDICS 🇩🇰 🇫🇮 🇳🇴 🇮🇸 🇸🇪

The foreign ministers of Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Sweden put out a statement stressing that only Greenland and Denmark can decide Greenland’s future.

– Eddy Wax

Correction: Tuesday’s edition of Rapporteur misstated the first names of candidates in Portugal’s presidential race. The independent outsider is Manuel João Vieira, while the contenders on the left include André Pestana and Humberto Correia.

Donald Trump’s threats to seize Greenland have exposed a strategic truth Europeans would rather avoid.

In his latest op-ed, Euractiv columnist Simon Nixon writes that the US president's intervention in Venezuela has stripped away any remaining doubt that Washington is willing to use force to achieve political ends – even against allies.

Europe lacks both the hard power to resist and the leverage to dissuade the US, leaving leaders to weigh an uncomfortable trade-off: whether preserving Danish sovereignty matters more than keeping America committed to NATO in an era where might increasingly makes right.

Contributors: Laurent Geslin, Magnus Lund Nielsen, Björn Stritzel, Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro, Alice Bergöend, Jacob Wulff Wold

Editors: Christina Zhao, Charles Szumski