Three decades ago Greenlanders won a degree of home rule and then, anxious about fishing rights, promptly voted to pull themselves out of the European Union (then the European Community), completing the process in 1985, becoming the only people ever to secede from the continental block.

ECONOMIST: Decolonising the Arctic

Britain's Conservative Party, hostile to the EU's draft constitution and membership of the single currency, sits in the European People's Party block, made up mainly of continental Christian Democratic parties that are much more integrationist than the Conservatives.

ECONOMIST: Can supermodels save Strasbourg? | The

Chavez has a continental agenda where he seeks to create a new block in the country under Venezuelan hegemony.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy