- Emergency European summit scheduled for Thursday in Brussels.
- The envoys push diplomacy while preparing retaliatory measures.
- Growing calls to trigger unused EU ‘anti-coercion instrument’.
European Union ambassadors reached broad agreement on Sunday to step up efforts to dissuade U.S. President Donald Trump from imposing tariffs on European allies, while also preparing retaliatory measures if the tariffs were kept in place, EU diplomats said.
Trump pledged Saturday to implement a wave of tariff increases starting Feb. 1 on EU members Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, as well as Britain and Norway, until the United States is allowed to buy Greenland, a move that major European states have decried as blackmail.
EU leaders are expected to discuss options at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday. One option is a package of tariffs on 93 billion euros ($107.7 billion) of U.S. imports that could automatically take effect on Feb. 6 after a six-month suspension.
The other is the “Anti-Coercion Instrument” (ACI), never used until now, which could limit access to public tenders, investments or banking activity or restrict trade in services, in which the United States has a surplus with the bloc, including in digital services.
The tariff package appears to enjoy wider support as a first response than anti-coercion measures, for which the picture is currently “very mixed”, according to an EU source.
Dialogue in Davos
European Council President Antonio Costa, who chairs EU summits, said in a social media post that his consultations with EU members had shown their strong commitment to supporting Denmark and Greenland and their willingness to defend themselves against any form of coercion.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, visiting his Norwegian counterpart in Oslo, said Denmark would continue to focus on diplomacy, referring to an agreement reached Wednesday between Denmark, Greenland and the United States to create a working group.
“The United States is much more than its president. I’ve just been there. There are also checks and balances in American society,” he added.
The EU’s dialogue efforts are likely to be a key theme at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where Trump is scheduled to deliver a keynote speech on Wednesday in his first appearance at the event in six years.
“All options are on the table, negotiations in Davos with the United States and the leaders meet afterwards,” said a European diplomat, summing up the EU plan.
The eight targeted countries, already subject to U.S. tariffs of 10 and 15 percent, have sent small numbers of troops to Greenland, as the conflict with the United States over the future of Denmark’s vast Arctic island intensifies.
“Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” they said in a joint statement released on Sunday, adding that they were ready to engage in dialogue based on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a written statement that she was encouraged by the constant messages from the rest of the continent, adding: “Europe will not be blackmailed.”
The tariff threat has disrupted global markets, with the euro and pound sterling falling against the dollar and a return to volatility expected.
Question marks over US trade deals
A source close to French President Emmanuel Macron said he was pushing for the activation of the ACI. Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said that while there was no doubt the EU would retaliate, it was “a little premature” to activate the still unused instrument.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is closer to the U.S. president than some other European leaders, on Sunday called the tariff threat a “mistake,” adding that she had spoken to Trump hours earlier and told him what she thought.
Asked how Britain would respond to the new tariffs, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said allies needed to work with the United States to resolve the dispute.
“Our position on Greenland is non-negotiable… It is in our collective interest to work together and not start a war of words,” she told Sky News on Sunday.
The tariff threats, however, call into question trade deals the United States struck with Britain in May and with the EU in July.
These limited agreements have already faced criticism for their unbalanced nature, with the United States maintaining broad tariffs while its partners are required to remove import duties.
The European Parliament appears set to suspend its work on the EU-US trade deal. The vote on scrapping many EU import duties was due to be held on January 26-27, but Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party, the largest group in Parliament, said on Saturday evening that approval was not possible at the moment.
German Christian Democrat MP Jürgen Hardt also discussed what he told the Bild newspaper could be a last resort “to bring President Trump to his senses on the Greenland issue,” a boycott of the FIFA World Cup that the United States is hosting this year.
