In the shadow of renewed American ambitions over the Arctic, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has pledged €200 million to Greenland — a self-governing territory of 56,000 people sitting atop vast resources and receding ice. The gesture is less about money than about meaning: Europe is signaling that Greenland belongs within a community of shared democratic values, not within the reach of transactional acquisition. At stake is not merely one island's future, but the shape of Arctic governance in an era when geography is once again becoming destiny.