Good morning from Brussels. I’m Mared Gwyn.
As you were sleeping, US President Donald Trump warned of “very strong action” if Iran carries through on its threat to execute protesters. The President earlier dismissed Tehran’s offer of talks and told Iranian citizens that “help is on its way.” The Wall Street Journal reports that Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia have been lobbying the US administration to refrain from intervening militarily as speculation over Trump’s next move mounts.
The death toll from the regime’s brutal crackdown on demonstrators has now surpassed 2500 according to activist groups, dwarfing the death tolls from similar popular uprisings in the country in recent years.
Speaking exclusively to Euronews’ EU editor Maria Tadeo on Tuesday, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola predicted the imminent fall of the Iranian regime and urged the EU to capitalise on a “golden moment” to back the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom. We lead this morning with more details from that interview.
Several European countries – including France, Germany, Italy and Spain – summoned their Iranian ambassadors on Tuesday amid deepening concern over the brutality of the regime’s clampdown.
EU ambassadors meanwhile examined a Dutch proposal for a fresh package of sanctions against Iran on Tuesday, as scooped by our EU correspondent Maïa de La Baume, which has not yet been agreed and would come on top of a range of travel bans and asset freezes that are already in place.
Also today, US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are set to meet the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland later to address the administration’s publicly-stated ambitions to buy Greenland.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen on Tuesday said the territory preferred to remain tied to Denmark over joining the US, and outright rejected the prospect of a sale.
With Denmark and Greenland aiming to present a united front, a NATO source tells my colleague Shona Murray there is “despair” at the possible implications of Trump’s ambitions for the Alliance, whose main decision-making body is meeting today. Several European officials, including the EU’s defence chief, have warned in recent days that any US advance could break the military alliance apart. We have more below.
Earlier on our flagship morning show, former European Trade Commissioner and WTO chief Pascal Lamy responded to reports that the European Parliament could delay a vote on the EU-US trade deal agreed last summer in retaliation for the Trump administration’s threats to Greenland. MEPs have previously told Euronews they see the vote as leverage to dissuade the Trump administration from forcibly acquiring the territory.
“My view here is that we have to swallow this bill, which is very sour, and the reason for that is that we need the US on board for Ukraine. That’s the real background – it’s a trade-off,” Lamy told Europe Today.
“I do recognise there is no guarantee from Trump that he will continue to support Ukraine the way we (Europe) do it,” Lamy acknowledged, but rejected the notion that the trading relationship could be used as a bargaining chip to convince Trump to play ball on Greenland
“We know how transactionally he is. (…) So this is something that is very serious.”
Exclusive: President Metsola predicts collapse of Iranian regime
In an exclusive interview with our EU editor Maria Tadeo on Tuesday, President Roberta Metsola predicted the fall of the Iranian regime in 2026 and urged European governments to capitalise on a “golden moment” to back the protest movement.
“I think the European Union has a golden moment (…) to show its firmness, its strength and also its clarity: we support freedom. This is a fundamental pillar of everything we’ve built our Union on,” Metsola told Maria.
“Our appeal is to go now. We think that 2026 should be the year when dictatorships are over. And this is a golden moment for the EU, for member states, for governments to say that this regime – as the German Chancellor said – is on its last legs. We fully agree with it, and we should go further,” Metsola added.
“If not now, when? The people of Iran are calling for this to happen. We believe in them, we believe in all their efforts in order to see that there is a change – that there is a fall of the regime. How does that happen? That’s not for us to say, it’s for the Iranian people to determine. But we support them.”
Metsola on Monday responded to the killing of protesters by the Tehran regime with a ban on the entry of Iranian representatives to the parliament’s premises. She said that the parliament could not “stand idly by” when the regime was violently clamping down on “universal freedoms”, adding that the decision has “broad political support” in the parliament because the institution “stands for the very opposite of what the (Tehran) regime stands for.”
She also supported “any attempt” to restore connectivity and communications in Iran, which has been under a complete internet blackout since Thursday, with some limited phone services returning in recent hours.
She also called for tougher EU sanctions, including the listing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation, a move which would require the unanimous approval of all 27 EU member states.
Read the full story.
Greenland threat looms large as NATO’s North Atlantic Council meets
NATO’s North Atlantic Council (NAC) – the alliance’s principle decision-making body is meeting this afternoon where the issue of Greenland is not formally on the table but will undoubtedly loom large, our EU correspondent Shona Murray reports. Meanwhile, Greenland and Danish foreign ministers are also meeting with senior Trump officials including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, at the White House today.
Last week, the NAC agreed that allies will take “extra steps” to strengthen security at the Arctic’s High North from potential Russian or Chinese interference, but haven’t agreed on the parameters of this collective defense measure.
The question is whether any of their efforts will be enough to persuade Trump not to forcibly “acquire” Greenland. NATO sources are sceptical, with one telling Euronews of their “despair” at Trump’s talk of a putsch against one of NATO’s founding members and the US’ most reliable allies, Denmark.
“The US is allowed to deploy all the military force it wants but by its own decision, it reduced this dramatically,” the source added.
The Prime Ministers of Greenland and Denmark put on a united front ahead of today’s meetings.
“One thing must be clear to everyone, Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States. We choose Greenland as we know it now and that’s as part of the community of the Kingdom of Denmark”, Greenland’s PM Jen-Frederick Nielsen told reporters in Nuuk.
More from our newsrooms
Can a leaderless revolution really succeed? Some examples from other countries. Our Euronews Farsi team looks at historical parallels to the ongoing uprising in Iran. Read.
Estonia bans Russians who fought in Ukraine from entering country, interior ministry says. The ministry estimates as many as 1.5 million Russians have taken part in the full-scale invasion, about half of them having served on the front line. Gavin Blackburn has more.
EU cracks down on ‘forever chemicals’ with new protections for drinking water. What will change? EU-wide protections against ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water have officially come into effect, providing member states with the “rules and tools” to protect public health. Liam Gilliver has the details.
We’re also keeping an eye on
- EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas meets the European Parliament’s Conference of Presidents (CoP)
That’s it for today. Shona Murray and Maria Tadeo contributed to this newsletter. Remember to sign up to receive Europe Today in your inbox every weekday morning at 08.30.
Read the full article here