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The EU will not allow other countries to attack the union’s borders.
This is the message from France’s Foreign Minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, regarding the upcoming US President Donald Trump’s statements about Greenland. This is reported by the news agency Reuters on Wednesday.
“Of course, it is not an option that the European Union will allow other countries in the world to attack its sovereign borders, whoever they are,” Barrot says according to Reuters.
“We are a strong continent,” he continues in one of the first ministerial reactions in the EU – if not the first – to Trump’s statements on Tuesday.
On his social media platform Truth Social, Donald Trump wrote at the end of last year that ownership and control over Greenland are “crucial.”
At a press conference on Tuesday, Trump said he could not rule out the use of economic or military coercion to gain control over the Panama Canal and Greenland.
The news agency AFP also brings the French reaction, which Barrot made to the radio channel France Inter.
Here he says that he does not think that “the USA will invade” Greenland. But he notes that we “have entered an era where we see a return to the law of the strong.”
Greenland is not a member of the EU but is linked to the EU through a special association arrangement for overseas countries and territories.
Tuesday’s Trump statements came after a day when the debate about Greenland’s future flared up violently, partly as a result of Donald Trump Jr. – Trump’s son – visiting Nuuk.
Later, the elder Trump was directly asked at a press conference if he would rule out the use of military or economic coercion concerning the Panama Canal as well as Greenland.
“No, I can’t promise anything in relation to the two, but I can say this: We need them for our economic security,” said Trump, who is being inaugurated as President on January 20.