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2025 OPINION POLLING GREENLAND

President Donald Trump plans to pull about 20,000 U.S. troops from Europe, according to a leading Italian news agency.

A European diplomatic source told ANSA that Trump, who entered office on Monday for a second term, wants to reduce the American contingent in Europe by about 20 percent and plans to ask for a "financial contribution" for the maintenance of the remaining troops.

Ownership of Greenland is not about the US, but about the protection of the entire free world - and Denmark cannot provide that, says Donald Trump.

The top European Union military official, Robert Brieger, said it would make sense to station troops from EU countries in Greenland, according to an interview with Germany's Welt am Sonntag published on Saturday, as U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed interest in acquiring the Danish territory.

Three more EU member states — including the most populous, Germany — have joined the list of countries with “ultra-low” fertility rates, highlighting the extent of the region’s demographic challenges.

Official statistics show Germany’s birth rate fell to 1.35 children per woman in 2023, below the UN’s “ultra-low” threshold of 1.4 — characterising a scenario where falling birth rates become tough to reverse.

Estonia and Austria also passed under the 1.4 threshold, joining the nine EU countries — including Spain, Greece and Italy — that in 2022 had fertility rates below 1.4 children per woman.

The fall in birth rates partially reflects the “postponement of parenthood until the 30s”, which involves a “higher likelihood that you will not have as many children as you would like because of the biological clock”, said Willem Adema, senior economist at the OECD.

Without immigration, low fertility rates mean a shrinking working-age population, adding pressures on public finances and limiting economic growth.

With young people reaching milestones, such as buying a house, later in life, the average age of EU women at childbirth rose to 31.1 years in 2023, a year later than a decade ago. The figure rises is 31.4 in Germany, and over 32 years in Spain, Italy and Ireland.

Austria reported a fall to 1.32 children per woman in 2023, down from 1.41 in the previous year. In Estonia, the rate hit 1.31 in 2023, down from 1.41 in the previous year.

Birth rates have fallen across Europe — even in countries such as Finland, Sweden and France, where family-friendly policies and greater gender equality had previously helped boost the number of babies.

In Finland, the birth rate was above the EU average until 2010, but it dropped to 1.26 in 2023, the lowest since the record began in 1776, according to official data.

France had the highest birth rate at 1.79 children per woman in 2022, but the national figures showed it dropped to 1.67 last year, the lowest on record.

Rates fell lower also in countries where they were already ultra-low, reaching 1.12 in Spain and 1.2 in Italy in 2023.

Guangyu Zhang, population affairs officer at the UN, called for governments “to put more family-friendly and gender-responsive policy measures in place”, saying this would enable women and men to have the multiple children that surveys claim they want.

Experts believe economic and political upheaval partly explain the trend of people having fewer children.

“You might have a job, but if you’re worried about losing it, or worried about inflation or worried about conflict in Ukraine, then you still might hesitate to have children,” said Ann Berrington, professor of demography at the University of Southampton.

Changes in social attitudes might also be at play.

Adema said: “The norms of what it means to be a good parent and how intensive you should participate in that are such that quite a few young people say: ‘Well, in addition to the fact that I don’t need children to be happy, it would also be a very difficult job for me to do, and I’m not sure that I can take that responsibility’.”

finland's transmission grid company fingrid announced that estlink 2 disconnected from the grid at 12.26. the power transfer of the connection was 650 mw when it disconnected.

xin xin tian 2 left st petersburg on christmas eve, and according to marinetraffic it is on its way to port said in egypt.

fingrid is currently investigating where the connection was lost. for now it is not certain whether the connection was lost on land or if something happened to the submarine cable. it is also not known whether the xin xin tian 2 vessel had anything to do with the power cable fault.

read also xin xin tian 2 moved near the power cable – this is what is now known about the power connection between finland and estonia being cut – nothing is ruled out, all stones and stumps are being turned and we will see what caused it [the outage]. yes, that [sabotage] is also considered an option, fingrid's control room manager arto pahkin told iltalehti earlier.

There have been other recent incidents of sabotage involving Chinese and Hong Kong-flagged cargo ships in the Baltic Sea.

In November, the Chinese cargo ship Yi Peng 3 was suspected of severing two critical telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea. In October last year, the Hong Kong-registered NewNew Polar Bear cargo ship was linked to damage to the BalticConnector gas pipeline.

 Indicative map of the locations of the Estlink cables between Estonia and Finland. il/aleksi nissilä, openstreetmap Article edited on 25.12.2024 at 21.58: The power transmission of the connection has been clarified based on a Fingrid press release.