Stellan Skarsgård has addressed the escalating stand-off between Donald Trump and Europe over the U.S. president’s demand that Denmark handover its autonomous territory of Greenland.
The Swedish actor and Norwegian Sentimental Value director Joachim Trier, whose home countries are Denmark’s closest neighbors, were asked for their thoughts on the situation during the winners’ press conference at the European Film Awards in Berlin on Saturday night. Skarsgård scooped Best Actor, while the drama swept the top prizes.
“You want us to comment on what’s happening in Greenland?,” said Skarsgård, who then launched into a characteristically forthright reply.
“It’s absurd, isn’t it? It’s a little man who got megalomania, and he’s trying to take the world. He took Venezuela, suddenly, and that’s for Chevron. He’ll take Greenland for minerals. He’s a criminal,” said Skarsgård, who also won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor last week.
He was alluding to news that the U.S. is pushing to expand energy giant Chevron’s license for its oil production in Venezuela in the wake of its military operation in early January removing incumbent Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro from power.
Trump has said his desire to annexe Greenland is for the security of the U.S. amid concerns that China and Russian also have their eyes on the icy territory which is home to around 57,000 mainly Indigenous Inuit people. Critics says his demands are linked rather to an ambition to seize its untapped mineral resources.
The stand-off between Trump and Europe ratcheted up on Saturday evening, as stars were hitting the red carpet in Berlin, after the president announced he would impose 25% trade tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland if a deal for the U.S. to acquire Greenland was not struck.
Denmark and its European allies insist Greenland is not for sale and said that Trump’s tariff threats on Saturday were “unacceptable” and tantamount to “blackmail”, with the European Union due to hold an emergency meeting on Sunday.
Denmark and Norway have had a connection with Greenland for more than 1,000 years, with people from both nations, which were united under the same crown until 1814, settling the territory. Denmark retained ownership of the country in 1814 and officially integrated it into the Danish state in 1953.
Its colonial legacy in the territory is chequered but Denmark has sought to make amends for past wrongs in recent years, having granted the local population autonomy with the Self-Government Act in 2008.
Currently, there is no sense Greenlanders want to become part of the U.S., with protestors taking to the streets in Greenland and Denmark on Saturday to voice their rejection of Trump’s designs on the territory.
Trier, whose films are imbued with a humanist approach, took a more measured tone in his response.
“Sitting in Europe today. I think that what we’ve learned from history is that the idea of appropriation of other countries and the idea of colonialization is something that we suffer through guilt for in Europe, in the sense that we are trying to move forward from that idiotic idea,” he said.
“Denmark has come a long way in apologizing and trying to make good for their appropriation of Greenland in the past, and Greenland is for people from Greenland. So, this idea of reappropriating it for another culture, when Denmark has been very clear that America can, through NATO Alliance, protect Greenland if they feel like it in a greater military capacity, and now this is happening. I agree with Stellen that it’s an absurd notion, and international law must be respected, because grinding that down will have such tremendous domino effects on how other superpowers will treat other countries, so the dominant effect of that is extremely worrying, if it is to happen,” he concluded.
Saturday night’s European Film Award ceremony unfolded against a backdrop of heightened international and domestic tensions in Europe, due to Trump’s economic and military saber-rattling as well as the ongoing Russian-Ukraine War. The rise of right-wing politics and nationalism at home has also raised fears over the future of public spending on arts and culture.
Earlier in the night, Trier used his acceptance speech for the Best Director award to highlight the unifying potential of cinema, saying: “I think we’re at a core moment when we all have to take into account that the other is not our enemy, and that art can help us, at best, create empathy in the darkness.”
The evening also saw Norwegian acting icon Liv Ullmann take a potshot at Trump in her acceptance speech for her Lifetime Achievement Award, in which she questioned Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado’s move to gift him with her Nobel Peace Prize last week.
