“It is clear that the sovereignty of states has to be respected,” Commission spokesperson Anitta Hipper said, adding that they are looking forward to working with the next U.S. administration toward “a stronger transatlantic agenda.”
The answer did not appease journalists in the press room, as several questions followed on the issue, with one even comparing the issue to the run-up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Before that, for some months publicly, the Commission, the EEAS and diplomats in some member states were stating that an invasion was a hypothetical scenario, so there’s no need to intervene,” said correspondent of the Italian Radio Radicale, David Carretta.
“What President Trump said yesterday was a military threat to a member state, which is real: He is the president-elect of the most powerful country in the world. Are you conscious that there is a risk?” he added.
Of the almost 57,000 people who live on the giant, mineral-rich Arctic island, only around 2,000 are non-Danes, meaning the population mostly consists of EU citizens.
Although the Commission confirmed that any military action against Greenland would activate the EU’s mutual assistance clause in Article 42(7) of the Treaty, it refused to answer whether it assesses that there’s a real risk of the U.S. invading Denmark’s overseas territory, calling the case “very theoretical.”