How do Greenland, Aruba, Mayotte and other Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) use the EU in their efforts to put their colonial status behind them? How do the EU and its member states deal with these political entities, which are only partially independent? On the one hand, the OCTs are seeking greater room to manoeuvre on their own. On the other hand, they are developing a close relationship to the supranational EU in more or less (dis)concert with their former coloniser. This paper addresses these apparently contradictory movements of fragmentation and integration. Theoretically, the article explores sovereignty as discursive and as practical games. By focusing on these arguably odd entities, we tell a different story about how sovereignty works in international relations.
