The crisis meeting in Brussels starts at 5 p.m. The EU will coordinate a joint response, said EU Council President António Costa on Saturday.
"There is of course a lot of dialogue going on between the capitals. These are difficult and complex issues," said Sara Keusen, press adviser at Sweden's EU representation in Brussels, to TT.
Contact with industry
The meeting was called shortly after President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened punitive tariffs of 10 percent against eight countries that have sent military personnel to Greenland, including Sweden.
Immediately after the announcement, close contacts began between Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M) and his Nordic colleagues. He also had contacts with the opposition and with representatives of the export industry.
On Saturday evening, Sweden's security adviser also had a meeting with representatives of allies in Europe, a government source told TT.
“No doormat”
According to Trump, tariffs will be raised to 25 percent on June 1 if the US is not allowed to buy Greenland before then.
In addition to Sweden, the threat applies to the EU countries Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, as well as the United Kingdom and Norway.
Several voices within the EU are pressing for the not yet approved trade agreement between the EU and the US to be put on hold.
The EU is not a doormat for Donald Trump. To proceed at this stage would have been to give Trump a gift, said Liberal MEP Karin Karlsbro, vice-chair of the trade committee and the Liberal party group's lead negotiator for the trade agreement with the US.
“Time for the trade bazooka”
Karlsbro believes that the EU should now resort to the so-called "trade bazooka", an anti-coercive instrument that was developed in 2023, which means that the Union can quickly deploy countermeasures to respond to external economic pressure.
We have reached a point where it is time to hit back hard and use the so-called bazooka, the trade policy equivalent of NATO's Article 5. We can then jointly respond with the sharpest measures, which could involve tariffs and restrictions on American investments, for example, said Karin Karlsbro.
