Michele Domenicucci |
The European Union is expected to release a new Arctic Strategy in a few days. The Arctic region has always been a strategic area for a wide range of geopolitical actors, from Nordic countries to Russia and Canada and the US, but also NATO and the EU. In recent years attention has surged and different dynamics has shown old and new problems: the Russian threat and its hybrid war to both EU and NATO Member States, the strategic disengagement of the US from Europe (and at the same time its growing interest in specific zones like Greenland), the aggressive entry of China in the region. Moscow and Beijing have strengthened their military and economic relations, investing in new infrastructures, supply chains and shipping routes. The European Union have signed different defence and security partnerships with Nordic and Baltic countries, especially with Norway in 2024, the UK and Canada in 2025, with Iceland in 2026: a strategic move to consolidate strategic leverage over the GIUK gap (Greenland, Iceland and United Kingdom). All of that while climate change accelerates unabated and Europe’s fragility of its defensive system makes itself more vulnerable.
New challenges are coming also from climate change. Over the last few years, the Arctic is warming more rapidly than any other region in the world and this opens to new opportunities but also to new risks: the seas do not freeze like they once used to, creating new navigation routes and new prospect for resources exploitation. Military operation and security activities are becoming even more hard and unpredictable due to faster changes in climate and their unforeseeably. Without taking into account environmental concerns and the impact over local communities.
Exposure to risks in Europe has become more tangible, especially since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In particular, in the Arctic, Northern Atlantic and Baltic regions different threats are emerging with increasing frequency. The most targeted assets are communication infrastructures and supply chains, especially in the energy sector. These attacks may vary from undersea cables to sea lines of communication, transportation sector, rail lines and logistic data. Since 2021 there have been fourteen hybrid attacks damaging the undersea infrastructures. The EU has implemented practical countermeasures to withstand Russian attacks: for instance, the EU Action Plan on Cable Security in 2025, the EU Submarine Cable Security Toolbox in 2026 and is investing €1 billion in the Cable Projects of European Interest, covering the 2026 – 2040 period.
The EU position is summarized in the latest Arctic Strategy, released in 2021. It presents three main pillars that can be synthesized in: climate change and environmental protection, consequence also of the European Green Deal (through transitioning away from fossil fuels), sustainable economic development and the extraction of critical raw materials necessary for the energetic transition and international cooperation to establish security and stability in the region. But the changes occurred in the last four years have prompted a reconsideration of established positions: Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, in 2025 said that Europe needs to “strengthen the protection of critical infrastructure, including subsea cables and power grid”. The 2021 Arctic Strategy appears now outdated and ineffective to contrast the new perils and hostile behaviours from neighbouring countries like Russia. With the implementation of the retreat of the United States from the global political arena the European Union must stand out sharply as the main geopolitical actor in the region and function as a rule-setter that can shape the regulatory landscape. The agreements signed by the EU with Nordic countries previously mentioned have contributed to implement EU’s position in Northern Atlantic through different fields of international cooperation.
The EU has always, in the past years, responded with defensive countermeasures against the aggressions sustained, but this behaviour has never solved the problem at its root. The EU must legally consider Russian hybrid threats as a form of aggression: this will recognize fully the author of the attacks (Russia itself), and a common and strong definition will help establishing identification and penalties guidelines. The EU’s broader regulatory gridlock in tackling these issues, thereby compromising international law frameworks, is also a pivotal point. In 2023 the European Union has also adopted the Critical Entities Resilience (CER) Directive, which replaced the older 2008 version, establishing a CER Group to facilitate cooperation among Member States.
Like in 2016, when the Global Strategy was adopted, ten years later the European Union has to face pervasive and continuous (greater and more severe) challenges and threats that bring to the disillusion of its global aspirations and entail an existential crisis (especially regarding its role as a normative power and the pacific multilateralism that adopted with the European Security Strategy in 2003, ensue from post-Cold War euphoria). It stands to reason that, considering the state of current geopolitical climate, the EU cannot shirk its duties and prolong the decision-making process further. The EU as to embrace responsibility for global security, in first place for its own safety. This role should be fulfilled according to the doctrine of principled pragmatism, already introduce in 2016: that is, to help building resilience states and populations to stand crisis through international cooperation in crucial sectors like cybersecurity, energy security and through multilateral global governance.
The Arctic region has become even more strategic in the last decade: the external action of the EU must be driven also to legitimizing its presence in the area and the defence of its interests, along with having the concrete possibility to enact penalties and sanctions to those posing the threats. This should be aligned with principled pragmatism, a challenging form of realism. With the Global Strategy in 2016 a significant progress has been made: identifying better and in a more concrete way actors, problems, interests and proposals, and this needs to be implemented also in the 2026 Arctic Strategy, along with a realistic and sustainable timeline and a joint action of Member States.
The Arctic is changing rapidly. And the European Union must likewise adapt swiftly.
REFERENCES
L. S. Dahlberg, M. Martisiute, T. Etzold, European Policy Centre, 30/07/2026, “From sea to space: How the EU can turn the tide on the Arctic”: https://www.epc.eu/publication/from-sea-to-space-how-the-eu-can-turn-the-tide-on-the-arctic/
A. Stepien, A. Raspotnik, The Arctic institute, 2021, “Continuity with great confidence. The European Union’s 2021 arctic policy update”: https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Continuity-with-Greater-Confidence-The-EUs-Arctic-Policy-Update-2021.pdf
https://www.critical-entities-resilience-directive.com
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52025JC0009
European Commission, 05/02/2026, “Submarine Cable Security Toolbox and Cable Projects of European Interest”: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/submarine-cable-security-toolbox-and-cable-projects-european-interest
W. Qiu, Submarine Networks, 26/02/2026, “EU Submarine Cable Security Toolbox”: https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en/nv/insights/eu-submarine-cable-security-toolbox
P. Soler, The Parliament Magazine, 11/09/2026, “The EU fights for stake in Arctic power game”: https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/the-eu-fights-for-stake-in-arctic-power-game
European Commission, Migration and Home Affairs, 13/01/2026, “Critical infrastructure resilience at EU-level”: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/internal-security/counter-terrorism-and-radicalisation/protection/critical-infrastructure-resilience-eu-level_en
Biscop, S. (2012), “No Strategy Lasts Forever: Time for a New European Security Strategy.” Sicherheit Und Frieden (S+F) / Security and Peace, 30 (3): 148–151.
Mälksoo, M. (2016), “From the ESS to the EU Global Strategy: external policy, internal purpose”, Contemporary Security Policy, 37 (3): 374-388.
Tocci, N. (2017), “From the European Security Strategy to the EU Global Strategy: explaining the journey”. International Politics 54: 487–502.
Rispondi