EU puts security first in new Arctic plan, with a Greenland cable and more icebreakers

The European Union has rewritten its plan for the Arctic with security at the top, setting out a maritime surveillance hub, more icebreakers and a fibre-optic cable from Greenland to Europe as Russia’s military reach in the far north grows and Washington keeps its eye on Greenland.

The European Commission unveiled the revised strategy on Tuesday. It ranks security and resilience first among four priorities, ahead of climate change, economic prosperity and opportunities for the people who live in the region.

“The Arctic is one place where the tectonic plates of geopolitics are colliding,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. Sovereignty and territorial integrity, she added, can no longer be taken for granted there.

What the plan does

At its centre is a new maritime security hub where member states and partners can pool information and watch shipping in Arctic waters. Over time it is meant to track vessels of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, spot illegal fishing and pollution, and help coordinate search and rescue.

The EU will also work to build up European icebreaker capacity, and will back a pan-Arctic fibre-optic cable that would link Greenland directly to Europe, as part of a wider network reaching Canada, Japan and South Korea. Government communications in the region would run over IRIS², the EU’s planned secure satellite constellation, which is seen as Europe’s answer to Starlink.

Several of these steps, the cable and the satellites in particular, look designed to make Europe less dependent on the United States.

The climate side of the strategy promises more research, observation and monitoring, carried out with Arctic communities. The Commission also restated its position that oil, coal and gas should stay in the ground, in the Arctic as elsewhere.

Russia, and Washington

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas pointed to Russia’s expanding military footprint in the high north, citing drone incursions, GPS jamming and sabotage of undersea cables.

Leaders of 12 countries, including Germany, France, Finland and Denmark, met on the Arctic last month and named Russia as the biggest threat, while also noting the ambitions of China and the United States. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said then that the era of “high north, low attention” was over. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo called Russia the most significant long-term threat and urged the EU to treat the Arctic as a strategic frontier.

The American factor is harder to say out loud in Brussels. President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. His tone has softened this year and a security deal has been signed with Greenland and Denmark, but many in Europe remain wary, all the more since Trump announced oil, gas and mineral exploration on the island, a move Denmark pushed back against.