BRUSSELS ― EU leaders reckon Donald Trump’s about-turn on Greenland happened because they stuck together.

And while they’re not claiming victory just yet, they believe there are clear lessons to be learned after several years where splits and rivalry have dominated the bloc.

“When Europe is not divided, when we stand together and when we are clear and strong, also in our willingness to stand up for ourselves, then the results will show,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters as she arrived for Thursday’s summit in Brussels. “We have learned something during the last couple of days and weeks.”

Brussels exhaled on Wednesday after Trump announced he was backing away from threats of imposing tariffs on countries that sent troops to Greenland, touting a “framework” agreement struck with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte for resolving the crisis.

While the fine print of that deal — including whether it respects Denmark’s demand to retain full sovereignty of the island — isn’t yet clear, the situation showed the EU can be effective when it advances in lockstep, shows its ability to strike back and is willing to take clear steps like sending troops to reinforce Arctic security in the Danish-held territory, according to two EU diplomats and two senior EU officials. They spoke to POLITICO having been granted anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

“The fact that after those threats were made the EU coordinated very quickly, and reacted very quickly, reacted in a firm and calm way, with principled positions that were clear — this is certainly something that must be taken into account in terms of the reaction that followed,” said a senior EU official.

The EU is drawing on months of experience of dealing with the Trump administration, most notably last summer when it came to deciding whether to sign a U.S.-EU trade deal, a senior diplomat said.

Before the signing, EU leaders publicly diverged for weeks over how they should respond to Trump’s threat of sky-high tariffs.

While the leaders weren’t completely in agreement over Trump’s Greenland threats, the fact that France and Germany quickly agreed on preparing the use of the so-called Anti-Coercion Instrument against the U.S., a powerful trade retaliation tool, showed the bloc was now more decisive in its response.

“The debate we had in June-July helped us prepare. There is now a maturity in how the EU prepares and executes,” said the senior diplomat.

The decision by eight European countries to send troops to Greenland, on a NATO-led “scoping mission” to bolster Arctic security, also helped to solidify the EU’s position, said former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.

“My understanding is that when we speak the language of strength, we manage to push back against certain ambitions,” Attal told France Info radio on Thursday. “This only validates the idea that in a world that is all about power, we need to show that we can bite.”

The new playbook

In the hours after Trump’s huddle with Rutte in Davos, European diplomats were eager to underscore that a confluence of factors likely influenced Trump to take the military option for Greenland off the table, and that it remained to be seen what exactly motivated his thinking

Even European diplomats acknowledge it wasn’t all the EU’s doing. Nor do they claim to know Trump’s thinking. They pointed to U.S. public opinion being skeptical about a Greenland takeover, pressure from U.S. lawmakers unwilling to approve such a move and volatility in markets as all possible factors. 

But they underscored that, from the European side, there is now a clearer process for protecting EU interests. A key element is reaching out to U.S. lawmakers and business executives to convince that a transatlantic blow-up — or even, as Frederiksen suggested, the death of NATO — would not be in their interest.

“Europe has every reason to act with confidence,” Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said during his way into Thursday’s summit.

Another factor is the EU’s willingness to signal the readiness to retaliate. Diplomats pointed to European Parliament leaders pushing to delay approval of the EU-U.S. trade deal as evidence of institutions that are working together more quickly.

Rhetoric counts too, they said, pointing to French President Emmanuel Macron’s support for the Anti-Coercion Instrument and a speech from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen vowing an “unflinching” response.

“The conclusion we can draw is that when Europe responds in a united way, using the tools at its disposal … it can command respect,” Macron said on his way into the summit. “And that is a good thing.”