France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the EU would not allow any country to “attack its sovereign borders” after Donald Trump threatened Denmark and refused to rule out taking Greenland by force.
The French warning came as EU leaders registered their growing concern after Trump set out his designs on both Greenland and the Panama Canal.
Greenland, the world’s largest island, is an autonomous Danish territory that is not itself part of the EU.
“There is obviously no question of the EU letting other nations in the world, whoever they are, and I would even say starting with Russia, attack its sovereign borders,” Barrot told the France Inter radio station on Wednesday after being asked about the prospect of a US attempt to take Greenland from Denmark by force.
“We are a strong continent, we need to strengthen ourselves further.”
Denmark retains control of Greenland’s foreign and security policy, despite the territory’s 1985 departure from the EU after a referendum.
The French foreign minister added he did not expect Trump to invade Greenland, but said Europe needed to “wake up” to a more insecure world, echoing comments from French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week.
During Tuesday’s press conference, Trump vowed to “tariff Denmark at a very high level” unless the country gave up control of Greenland. He also suggested the US could annex Canada and called on Nato members to spend 5 per cent of their GDP on defence, more than double the current target.
Asked whether he would exclude the use of military or economic coercion to acquire Greenland or assume control of the Panama Canal, the president-elect said: “No, I can’t assure you on either of those two. But I can say this, we need them for economic security . . . We need Greenland for national security reasons”.
In 2019, during his first term, Trump said the US should take control of Greenland — a suggestion Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen labelled at the time “absurd”.
As Múte Egede, Greenland’s prime minister, met Danish King Frederik X on Wednesday, Copenhagen said it was open to talks with the US on closer co-operation in the Arctic region.
Lars Løkke Rasmussen, foreign minister, said he was ready to talk to the US about “how we can possibly co-operate even more closely to ensure that American ambitions [in the Arctic] are fulfilled.”
Barrot said he believed that “imperialist” actions towards Greenland, Canada or the Panama Canal would be “very badly received by the American people”.
EU leaders are “deeply disturbed by Trump’s comments”, said a senior bloc official who has been involved in recent conversations between national capitals. They added that officials were now taking the president-elect’s remarks more seriously after the visit by Trump’s son to Greenland on Tuesday.
“Each day there’s a new concern for us [from Trump],” said the senior EU official, adding that the bloc’s leaders were in constant contact about how best to respond collectively.
The EU’s treaty contains a mutual defence clause that specifies if any member is “a victim of armed aggression on its territory”, other states “have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power”. The measure has been invoked once, by France, after the 2015 Paris terror attacks.
The European Commission on Wednesday confirmed that its mutual defence clause would apply to Greenland in the hypothetical event of military aggression against it, despite the island territory not being part of the EU.
Barrot also called for the commission to take action against what France says is interference in European politics by Elon Musk, the Tesla boss and Trump confidant who has backed the far-right Alternative for Germany ahead of the country’s election and assailed Britain’s Labour government.
“Public debate cannot be relocated to large social media platforms owned by American billionaires without any regulatory oversight,” the French foreign minister added, noting recent EU legislation to moderate online content.
Barrot said he had “called on the commission several times to make more vigorous use of the tools that we have given it democratically to deter such behaviour”, adding that if Brussels cannot act it should “give that capacity back” to EU member-states including France.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, also criticised Musk. “The international far right, which we have been denouncing for years, is led by the richest man on the planet and is openly attacking our institutions,” he said in a speech to mark 50 years since the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco.
“It stirs up hatred and is supporting the heirs of Nazism in Germany in the elections . . . I believe that all this is a problem, a challenge, and a challenge that should matter to everyone who believes in democracy and in the Spanish constitution.”
Additional reporting by Barney Jopson and Richard Milne
