EU leaders are gathering in Brussels to discuss the volatile “new normal” in transatlantic relations, after weeks of escalating threats from Donald Trump over Greenland that were suddenly dropped over a vague deal on Arctic security.

An emergency EU summit was hastily convened earlier this week after the US president announced he would impose 10% tariffs on eight European nations that defended Greenland, an autonomous territory that is part of Denmark. Although Trump abandoned his tariff threat on Wednesday, EU officials said the summit remained necessary.

Trump’s decision to step back from tariffs “evidently changes a little the context of this European Council, but does not remove its interest,” said a European diplomat, who evoked shifting tectonic plates in the geopolitical order. In the context of “profound geopolitical movements” involving powers with great military and financial means “the Europeans must be capable of being sufficiently united and strong in defending their interests and defining their own path,” the person said.

Leaders were meeting in a context, said a senior EU official, “that was more positive than it was 24 hours ago to discuss how they understand this new reality”, citing “a new normal of this very important and structural relationship between Europe and the United States”.

The European parliament signalled on Thursday it was ready to reconsider its decision to freeze ratification of the EU-US trade deal, one of the bloc’s strongest responses to Trump’s tariff threats so far. MEPs had been expected to vote in February to approve 0% tariffs on many US goods, a key part of the trade agreement signed at Trump’s Turnberry golf resort last summer, but pressed pause on the process on Wednesday in response to tariff threats.

The head of the European parliament’s trade committee, the German Social Democrat lawmaker Bernd Lange, said his committee would revisit the issue next week, while stressing that the EU needed to remain vigilant. “There is no room for false security,” he wrote on X. “The next threat is sure to come. That’s why it is even more important that we set clear boundaries, use all available legal instruments [and] apply them as appropriate to the situation.”

In response to Trump’s tariff threats, the EU had been discussing levying duties on €93bn of US goods, as well as deploying its most powerful economic sanctions weapon, the anti-coercion instrument, which would allow the bloc to impose a broad range of economic penalties on US companies.

Even the EU’s most transatlantic-minded governments said such a response could be necessary if the tariffs went ahead.

European leaders had watched with growing alarm as Trump insisted on a US takeover of Greenland, a move that threatened to split Nato and the wider western alliance. European governments feared failure to resist a US takeover of Greenland would cast legitimacy over a Chinese seizure of Taiwan or a Russian invasion of the Baltic states, smashing the post-1945 rules-based order.

While that threat has subsided, for now, European leaders are also expected to share their concerns about Trump’s proposed “board of peace”, amid fears he is seeking to create a rival to the UN.

Donald Trump holds a signed founding charter at the ‘board of peace’ meeting during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, as other world leaders stand behind. Photograph: Gian Ehrenzeller/EPA

Launched in Davos on Thursday, the “board of peace” was initially part of Trump’s peace and reconstruction plan for Gaza, but is morphing into an organisation with a sprawling geopolitical role operating under his direct control. So far, Hungary and Bulgaria are the only EU member states to accept an invitation to join the “board of peace”, while France, Sweden and non-EU Norway and the UK have all declined.

“A very large majority [of EU member states] have said they are not in a position to join the board as it stands,” the EU official said, when asked whether European governments could join a “board of peace” that included Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader wanted for war crimes against Ukraine.

The Russian leader is yet to confirm whether he intends to accept the US invitation to join, but has suggested he could pay the $1bn fee required for permanent membership using Russian assets that are largely frozen in Europe and earmarked for reparations for Ukraine.

Summing up the transatlantic relationship, the official said it was a “very strong, but certainly more complex relationship with the US”, replete with disagreements, tensions and points of cooperation. He added: “We have to live with the new complexity.”