The great submarine cable that must join Europe with Greenland

BrusselsEurope is already preparing for the end of the war in Ukraine. Once the conflict is over, the Arctic will be the new security scenario on which the great powers will focus, and especially the Russian threat, community sources affirm. "With Russia and China increasing their footprint and ambition, the Arctic has become the new front line of global power competition," summarized the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, who insisted that this "new reality" has forced a rethink of European strategy and placed security as the top priority.

The Russian threat is spreading like oil across the polar region. Lately, Moscow has increased the presence of military forces on the Kola Peninsula, one of its main strategic assets because it hosts Russia's famous Northern Fleet and nuclear submarine forces. And hybrid threats, such as sabotage of underwater cables, have become common since the invasion of Ukraine. On the other hand, the Arctic is warming almost four times faster than the global average, and the melting of ice favors the race for the resources hidden underground.

Faced with this new security scenario, Brussels wants the Arctic to be its "next focus" for investments, including in military matters. The most notable is that it plans to build an underwater cable connecting Greenland to the European continent, to guarantee the passage of telecommunications. The EU aspires for this supercable, dubbed Pan-Arctic, to extend to Japan and South Korea, passing through Canada. All this, within the framework of an Arctic cable hub.

The EU's new plan to strengthen security in the Arctic will also have icebreakers as protagonists. All together, the member states barely have a dozen icebreakers, some of which are not suitable for the Arctic. Russia, on the other hand, has about forty. Now Brussels wants to reverse this trend and promote the joint purchase of this type of vessel, built to break through and navigate through ice-covered polar waters.

"To defend our interests, we are intensifying efforts in surveillance, infrastructure, military mobility, and defense technologies that can withstand harsh weather conditions," assured Kallas, who highlighted that Arctic maritime routes and natural resources have a "strategic interest" for Europe. Thus, to strengthen cooperation and surveillance, a maritime security center will also be created to facilitate information exchange and the monitoring of maritime activities. The goal is for the center to expand to the point of being able to track ghost fleet vessels, detect illegal fishing and pollution, and coordinate search and rescue operations.

The other rival, the USA

Greenland appears several times in the new security strategy presented by the EU, which updates the one from 2021. And it is no coincidence. The interest of the United States in the Arctic island has added a new layer of geopolitical instability to the region. The diplomatic fire ignited by Donald Trump when threatening to annex the territory was extinguished at the end of September, at the UN summit in New York, when Washington signed an agreement with Copenhagen and Nuuk. But Europe has learned its lesson and wants to shield the alliance with the island in the face of the unpredictability of American support.

The plan, which does not detail either the amount of the investments or the timeline, also provides for the deployed initiatives to have an impact on the local economy. The latest one announced by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was an investment of 200 million euros in Greenland. In the document, Brussels includes the desire to continue supporting the development of the territory, especially in renewable energy and sustainable mineral projects. "Oil, coal, and gas must remain underground, including in Arctic regions," it insists.