Kyriakos Mitsotakis will participate in a complex and multifaceted discussion tonight as he travels to Brussels for the extraordinary European Council session convened by its president, António Costa, where, as the prime minister has emphasized, “difficult decisions” must be made.
Read: Davos: Mitsotakis possibly arriving Thursday – No European signs Trump’s peace council
Mitsotakis’s planned trip to Davos was postponed on Wednesday due to bad weather, however it is now difficult for him to participate in the World Economic Forum proceedings, mainly due to tight time constraints. The dinner/informal European Union Summit will begin at 20:00 (Greek time, 19:00 local time), amid rapid developments including Donald Trump’s plans to acquire Greenland, the peace council the US president will establish, and the general deterioration of Euro-Atlantic relations.
Mitsotakis in Brussels ahead of difficult European decisions: the message to Trump and fears of Europe-US rupture
Regarding the peace council for Gaza, which Greece has been invited to join, the Greek government’s response will likely be negative. There is already concern within the European Union that this initiative appears to undermine the role of the United Nations. “It is a legally complex issue that we are examining in consultation with our European partners,” government sources note. “The general framework of the peace process based on President Trump’s 20-point plan is provided for in UN Security Council Resolution 2803, which Greece voted for. Greece, as an elected member of the UN Security Council, always operates within the United Nations framework,” the same sources add.
The leaders of the 27 EU member states want to convey four main messages at tonight’s informal summit:
– Unity around the principles of international law, territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
– Unity in full support and solidarity with Denmark and Greenland. The Greek prime minister has already openly expressed the position that Greenland is NATO territory and any attempt to change this status quo would be catastrophic. “We are talking about European territory and this is something that under no circumstances, not only Greece, but Europe as a whole, will negotiate,” government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said yesterday.
– Common transatlantic interest in peace and security in the Arctic, particularly within the NATO framework.
– Concern that imposing further tariffs would undermine relations and is incompatible with the EU-US trade agreement, a move that Donald Trump reversed on Wednesday evening after his meeting in Davos with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“What we defined as the West, which I would say is the transatlantic world, is being tested today. The United States is following a policy that does not consider, I would say, the deep symbiotic relationship with Europe as given,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a recent discussion with Ilias Kanellis at the Athens Odeon. “This is a reality we are dealing with on the ground, and it will concern us immediately at the extraordinary European Council meeting on Thursday. We will have to make difficult decisions.”
In his meeting with President of the Republic Konstantinos Tasoulas, Mitsotakis spoke of “unprecedented challenges to the international geopolitical and economic framework, as essentially built after World War II” and set as a primary requirement “that reason, dialogue, and open channels of communication prevail, so that we avoid the worst, especially regarding relations between Europe, the European Union and the United States.”
