EU to hold summit after Trump's threats over Greenland

EU Council President Ant?nio Costa will convene an emergency summit following US President Donald Trump's new tariff threats in the Greenland dispute.

While the date has not been definitively determined, it is clear that a meeting will take place, possibly on Thursday, an EU official said on Sunday.

Costa said his consultations with member states on the recent tensions surrounding Greenland had made it clear that tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and were incompatible with the EU-US trade agreement.

Costa, who chairs EU summits, said ?in a ?social media post that his consultations with EU ?members had shown their strong commitment ?to support Denmark and Greenland and readiness to defend against ?any ?form of ?coercion, while continuing ?to engage constructively with the United States.

He said that the EU was prepared to defend itself against any form of coercion.

At the same time, it wanted to continue to work constructively with the United States. There was a common transatlantic interest in peace and security in the Arctic, particularly through co-operation within NATO.

The meeting would involve EU heads of governments and states and comes after Trump announced on Saturday that he would impose a 10 per cent tariff on goods from eight European countries from February, rising to 25 per cent from June if no resolution is reached to his satisfaction, which would be the "complete and total purchase" of Greenland.

Six of the eight countries - Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland - are EU members while the United Kingdom and Norway are also on Trump's list.

All eight countries are members of the NATO defence alliance.

NATO chief Mark Rutte will meet with ministers from Greenland and Denmark on Monday over the dispute.

The EU is facing calls to ?implement a never-before-used range of economic counter-measures known as the "Anti-Coercion Instrument" as part of the bloc's response to Trump's tariff threats.

A source close to French President Emmanuel Macron said he was working to coordinate a ?European response and was ?pushing for activation of the Anti-Coercion Instrument, which could limit access to public tenders in the bloc or restrict trade in services in ?which the US has a surplus with the EU.

Greenland, a largely autonomous Arctic island, is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and is therefore also in NATO.

On Sunday the eight nations issued a joint statement warning of a "dangerous downward spiral" stemming from Trump's tariff announcement.

with Reuters and AP