KEY POINTS
- France and Germany warn Trump against threatening EU sovereignty.
- Trump refuses to rule out military action to acquire Greenland.
- Greenland’s leaders declare the island “not for sale” and defend self-determination.
- French officials criticise Trump’s remarks as “imperialism” and urged EU unity.
- Germany emphasises the inviolability of borders, rejecting coercion or force.
PARIS: France and Germany on Wednesday warned Donald Trump against threatening the “sovereign borders” of the European Union after the US president-elect refused to rule out military action to take Greenland, an autonomous territory of EU member Denmark.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio, “There is no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they may be, attack its sovereign borders.”
“We are a strong continent. We need to strengthen ourselves more,” he added.
In Berlin, German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in response to Trump’s remarks that “as always, the firm principle applies… that borders must not be moved by force”.
Barrot described Greenland as “European territory”. Greenland is associated with the European Union through Denmark, of which it is a self-governing territory, but withdrew from the European bloc in 1985 after securing autonomy.
Trump set off a new alarm on Tuesday at a press conference when he refused to rule out military intervention over the Panama Canal and Greenland, both of which he has said he wants the United States to control.
“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” he declared.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot emphasized that “the EU will not allow attacks on its sovereign borders,” urging Europe to strengthen militarily and economically.
His comments coincided with a private visit by his son Donald Trump Jr. to the mineral- and oil-rich autonomous Danish territory on Tuesday.
Last month his father, who takes office on 20 January, said US control of Greenland was an “absolute necessity” for America’s “economic security”.
“If you ask me: ‘is the United States going to invade Greenland?’ the answer is no,” said Barrot.
But he added: “We have entered an era that is seeing the return of the law of the strongest.”
“Should we be intimidated? Should we be overcome with worry? Evidently, no.
“We need to wake up and reinforce ourselves, militarily, in competition, in a world where the law of the strongest prevails.”
Barrot said he believed that the United States is “inherently not imperialistic” and said he “did not believe” that it is changing.
However French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas told reporters after a cabinet meeting that there was a “form of imperialism” in Trump’s comments.
“Today we are seeing the rise in blocs, we can see this as a form of imperialism, which materialises itself in the statements that we saw from Mr Trump on the annexation of an entire territory.”
“More than ever, we and our European partners need to be conscious, to get away from a form of naivety, to protect ourselves, to rearm,” she added.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede firmly rejected Trump’s remarks, declaring that “Greenland is not for sale and will never be for sale.”
The German government spokesman refused to be drawn on whether Berlin takes Trump’s threats against NATO allies Denmark and Canada seriously.
“I don’t want to assess” the comments, Hebestreit told a news conference, adding only that the German government had “taken note” of them.
At the news conference, Trump called the border with the United States’ northern neighbour Canada an “artificially drawn line” and promised to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, and Mute Egede, Greenland’s PM, have both said it is for Greenlanders to decide their future.
“There is a lot of support among the people of Greenland that Greenland is not for sale and will not be in the future either. Greenland belongs to the Greelanders,” Frederiksen said.
Greenland, which has a population of about 57,000 people, is the world’s biggest island. Since 2009 it has had the right to hold a referendum to decide whether it wishes to be independent. Egede is a member of the pro-independence Community of the People (IA) party.
Egede said last week Greenland “is not for sale and will never be for sale”.
Arriving at Copenhagen airport late on Tuesday night, Egede responded to Trump’s refusal to rule out military or economic coercion in order to gain control of Greenland, saying they were “serious statements”.
“The things that have come out, I think, are some serious statements. But we’ll take it from there,” he told the Danish broadcaster DR.
Barrot also urged the EU to resist threats from Elon Musk against a number of European leaders, notably Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“If the European Commission does not know how to protect us against this interference or these threats of interference then it must give member states, including France, the ability to protect itself,” Barrot said.
