EU Leaders to hold summit on Thursday to address Trump’s threats
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European Council President António Costa announced late Sunday that leaders from the European Union’s 27 member countries will gather “in the coming days” to address U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to seize Greenland. Costa convened this special meeting of the European Council after EU ambassadors met in Brussels on Sunday to discuss Trump’s remarks on Saturday about purchasing Greenland and imposing tariffs on EU nations that oppose him.
An EU official and a diplomat involved in the planning said the summit is set for Thursday, January 22. The meeting will be held in person, not via a virtual conference call, requiring all leaders to attend in person.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen hailed the support Denmark and Greenland are getting from European countries over U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to impose new tariffs in his bid to gain control of the Arctic island.
“I am pleased with the consistent messages from the rest of the continent: Europe will not be blackmailed,” Frederiksen wrote in a statement on Sunday reported by the BBC and other media.
“The Kingdom of Denmark is receiving great support,” she wrote, describing how she has been in “intensive dialogue” with allies including the U.K., France and Germany.
We’re not the ones looking for conflict,” Frederiksen stated. “At the same time, it is now even clearer that this is an issue that reaches far beyond our own borders,” she added.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was one of Frederiksen’s colleagues stressing that European countries “will not let ourselves be blackmailed.”
“This is an EU issue that affects many more countries than those now being singled out,” Kristersson said in a post on X on Saturday.
Frederiksen’s comments on Sunday came after Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K. — the eight countries targeted by Trump’s tariff threat — banded together to defend the “pre-coordinated Danish exercise” in Greenland that was cited by Trump in his Truth Social post about the new tariffs.
