EU wants to revive trade ties with the US, but warned the bloc will stand up for its interests. It also announced after an emergency summit that it will double its investment in Greenland.
European Council President Antonio Costa has said that the EU leaders believe “it’s very important to preserve and cherish our transatlantic partnership.”
He made the comments after chairing an emergency summit in Brussels late on Thursday.
The evening meeting was called to reassess ties with United States over President Donald Trump’s treats to annex the semi-autonomous Danish territory of Greenland and impose tariffs on select EU nations.
But on the eve of the summit, while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump suspended his tariff threats and said he wouldn’t use force to take the Arctic island.
EU leaders to turn focus on implementing trade deal with US
The summit didn’t make any decision. But Costa said the priority now must be to implement the EU-US trade deal agreed in July, 2025.
The US is the EU’s biggest trading partner. “The goal remains the effective stability of the trade relations,” Costa told reporters.
At the same time, Costa warned that the EU “will continue to stand up for its interests and will defend itself, its member states, its citizens and its companies against any form of coercion.”
EU aims to double financial support to Greenland
Speaking after the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has admitted that Europe has invested “too little in the Arctic and the security of the Arctic.”
In the next EU budget from 2028, the Commission also wants to double financial support for Greenland, she said.
She said her team “will soon put forward a comprehensive package of investments,” in Greenland without elaborating what these could be.
Merz ‘grateful’ for sudden climbdown in Davos
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed Trump’s apparent U-turn.
“I am very grateful that President Trump has distanced himself from his original plans to take over Greenland, and I am also grateful that he has refrained from imposing additional tariffs on February 1,” Merz told reporters ahead of the summit.
Merz also said that the EU countries “will have to strengthen the resilience and robustness of the European Union” going forward.
Denmark calls for permanent NATO presence in Arctic region
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen repeated her country’s call for an intensified NATO military presence in the Arctic region and the semi-autonomous territory of Greenland, in response to Trump’s claims of US control being necessary to fix perceived security shortfalls.
“We need a permanent presence from NATO in the Arctic region, including around Greenland,” Frederiksen told reporters. Like leaders in Greenland, she reiterated that sovereignty was a red line, but indicated a willingness to discuss further cooperation with the US.
“It’s clear for everybody that we are a sovereign state and we cannot negotiate about that. But of course we can discuss with the US how we can strengthen our common cooperation on security in the arctic region,” she said.
The US already has extensive rights to military access and construction in Greenland dating back the better part of a century. Trump has touted a “total access” deal in which the US will get “everything we wanted” at no cost, but has not gone into detail or explained how this differs from the status quo.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told the Reuters news agency that Western allies would step up their presence in the region under the deal, but did not flesh out how.
Relief tempered with caution
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that despite Trump’s change of tack, there was plenty for European leaders to discuss.
“I think everybody’s relieved by the recent announcements,” she said. “We have also seen that in this one-year period, we are ready for a lot of unpredictability.”
“We need to still discuss our plans for different scenarios because everything could change,” she added, pointing out that neither EU members nor the United States benefited from unpredictability in transatlantic relations. “Every kind of disagreement that allies have, like Europe and America, is just benefiting our adversaries who are looking and enjoying the view.”
