António Cotrim / Lusa
The Minister of State and Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento
“There are lines that cannot be crossed and the sovereignty of States is one of those”, warned Miranda Sarmento. Freezing the customs agreement with the USA and entry into force of taxes on imported North American products are letters from the European Union.
The Portuguese Government defended a “united and very strong response” of the European Union (EU) to the threats of the North American President, Donald Trump, to impose tariffs on some EU countries in opposition to the control of Greenland by the United States.
“I will not anticipate decisions that the European Council will take, at the level of prime ministers and heads of government, but it has to be a united response and a very strong response because there are lines that cannot be crossed and the sovereignty of States is one of these”, said Finance Minister, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, in Brussels.
“We will discuss this today and tomorrow [na reunião do Eurogrupo hoje e do Ecofin na terça-feira] and there is a European Council on Thursday”, he added, speaking to Portuguese journalists upon arrival at the meeting of euro zone finance ministers, days after , six of which are from the EU, in a context of tensions regarding the autonomous territory of Denmark, Greenland.
Joaquim Miranda Sarmento indicated that the EU is prepared “to act together, to evaluate the various hypotheses, given that This is a red line that the Union cannot fail to cross.”.
The anti-coercion instrument
The Portuguese official declined to specify possible approaches, merely mentioning that “there are several instruments on the table”, one of which is , with countermeasures amounting to 93 billion euros.
“We are not going to anticipate solutions, but it is not possible to accept that, even for a country that is Europe’s ally in NATO, a country that has had the largest trade relations with Europe worldwide, could call into question the sovereignty of a part of a Member State”, he stated.
The Minister of Finance guaranteed: “Portugal will always be on the side of compromise, the majority solution and the defense of Europe”.
Already questioned about the possible impact of North American measures, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento pointed out that Portugal has a “more comfortable and more robust position to accommodate negative external shocks that may exist”.
Among the options mentioned by the German Economy Minister this Monday are the freezing of the customs agreement between the United States and the European Union (EU) or the entry into force of taxes on imported North American products.
About a year ago, when he took office for a second term at the head of the White House, Donald Trump advanced tariffs against several territories, including the EU, but the threats were resolved through a trade agreement signed by Brussels and Washington last summer providing for a maximum limit of 15% of customs duties.
What is certain is that, in the face of last year’s trade tensions, the EU came to outline a package of retaliatory tariffs 93 billion euros to the United States, which is frozen until February, and the community bloc can resort to such a list if Trump’s new threats materialize.
Donald Trump has insisted for months that the , an autonomous territory of Denmark and a member of NATO, considers that anything less than the Arctic island being in American hands would be unacceptable. Greenland, a vast Arctic island with a population of 57,000, has significant mineral resources, most of which are still unexplored, as well as a strategic location.
