American President Donald Trump’s attempts to acquire Greenland have reignited the debate on the need for European countries to develop their own nuclear capabilities. The discussion has even reached Sweden, a country that has supported nuclear disarmament for decades.
In January, one of the most important Swedish newspapers, Dagens Nyheter, proposed the creation of a “common Scandinavian nuclear program”, possibly in cooperation with Germany. According to The Economist, similar debates are taking place in other European countries, where politicians are discreetly analyzing the prospect of a Europe less dependent on the American nuclear umbrella.
At the center of these discussions is the cooperation between the two nuclear powers of Europe: the United Kingdom and France. In July 2025, the two countries agreed to “coordinate” the use of nuclear weapons and declared that “there is no major threat to Europe that would not provoke a response from both states”.
At the same time, London and Paris have established a coordination group for nuclear policy, composed of high-ranking civilian and military officials, which met in December, in Paris. On this occasion, France invited the United Kingdom for the first time to observe its “Poker” nuclear simulation exercise, a quarterly demonstration of its strategic air forces. A French defense official described the gesture as a sign of “solid bilateral trust”.
The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, however, ruled out any modification of Paris’s exclusive control over nuclear weapons launch decisions. This position does not prevent, according to European sources, detailed discussions with other countries, including Germany.
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