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5 things the EU wants to change about its Arctic policy
BRUSSELS — The European Union is beefing up its presence in the Arctic to catch up with neighboring powers carving new trade lanes and drilling for resources under the melting ice.
On Tuesday, the EU unveiled a new plan called Northern Neighborhood. It’s meant to prepare for rising military and commercial activity in the north driven by climate change, and calls for new transport, research and security infrastructure in the region.
“The Arctic is one place where the tectonic plates of geopolitics are colliding. And it’s not someone else’s frontier. It’s part of the European Union,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared as she unveiled the strategy.
She pointed to Russia’s expanding military footprint and the race for emerging shipping routes and critical resources as forces reshaping Europe’s security and economic future.
Climate change is dramatically affecting the Arctic. Planet-warming emissions are making the ice melt faster, disrupting the region’s fragile ecosystems. But where the ice is disappearing, countries like China, Russia and even Canada see an opportunity.
The EU is now scrambling to update its existing policies on the Arctic — once largely focused on environmental protection — to give more importance to security, shipping and extracting resources.
The strategy calls for a rebranding of the EU’s existing partnerships with Norway, Iceland, Canada and the U.K., backed by regular summits to set joint priorities and launch projects.
Here are five things Brussels wants to change about its Arctic policy.
1. Defense and security
The strategy warns that Russia is rebuilding its military presence in the Arctic and that China has growing strategic ambitions in the region.
The EU plans to set up a pilot research project using satellite and maritime observation in 2027 and share ship-tracking data to help identify Russian shadow fleet vessels.
In the longer term, it wants EU countries to lead on a maritime security hub to pool intelligence on threats ranging from undersea cable sabotage to illegal fishing. It also calls for setting up an Arctic Cable Hub alongside NATO to monitor and protect subsea cables in the North Atlantic and the Arctic. The strategy lacks any information on funding for these projects, however.
Finnish MEP Mika Aaltola of the European People’s Party said the new focus on the Arctic is long overdue.
“Europe hasn’t been thinking about [the Arctic] enough,” Aaltola said. “Because of the ice melting and climate change, it’s becoming kind of the next great game. And if that happens, then what are the European positions when it comes to Russia, China and also the United States?”
2. Access to energy resources
The new policy sticks with EU promises not to drill for fossil fuels in the Arctic.
“The EU remains committed to ensuring that oil, coal and gas stay in the ground, including in Arctic regions,” it reads. Instead, Brussels promises to develop renewable energy projects in the region but drops an old commitment to convince the rest of the world to follow its lead.
“It is good that the Commission maintains its opposition to oil and gas drilling in the Arctic,” said Delara Burkhardt, a Socialist MEP, but not pressing for a global ban “weakens the EU’s ability to push for stronger international protection and leaves the door open for other countries to exploit one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems.”
The EU’s former Arctic policy — drafted in 2021 — committed the bloc to pursuing an international moratorium on Arctic oil and gas extraction.
Norway — which supplies a lot of energy to the EU — has made it clear it would still drill in the Arctic regardless of the bloc’s position.
3. Critical raw materials
The EU is under pressure to secure new supplies of critical raw materials to reduce its dependency on China.
The new strategy says it will continue working with Canada, Greenland, Norway and the United States to develop critical raw materials projects in the region, but insists it will do so while following the “highest social, environmental and governance standards,” and work to the “benefit of local communities in respect of Indigenous Peoples’ rights.”
Brussels has already labeled several critical raw materials projects, including the Sokli project in Finland and the Per Geijer rare earth deposit in northern Sweden, as “strategic” under EU law, which means they could benefit from faster permitting procedures.
But some of these projects face serious local resistance from local and indigenous communities, who say the mining plans threaten reindeer herding and protected ecological sites.
4. New trade routes
Melting ice is opening up new shipping routes in the far north, and the EU is worried that it could be sidelined from the region. But the strategy offers little on that front; its only action is a study on new shipping lanes.
The number of vessels operating in the area covered by the Polar Code — international regulations covering shipping in the Arctic and Antarctic — rose by 40% between 2013 and 2025, while the total distance sailed nearly doubled, said Michael Kingston, a special adviser on polar issues to the Arctic Council on marine protection.
Recent transits by Chinese and South Korean container ships using the Northern Sea Route running along Russia’s Arctic coast show the appeal of a route that is about 20 days faster than conventional routes, he added.
“Russia builds the infrastructure, China facilitates and funds some of it,” Aaltola said, calling it part of a “grand bargain” between the two.
He complained that the EU is left on the sidelines. “When it comes to the Arctic, there is a vacuum of interest, and there’s also a vacuum of resources and institutions participating.”
The route is still mostly seasonal for Russian oil and gas tankers, said Ksenia Vakhrusheva, project manager and Arctic project adviser at the environmental group Bellona. Ice, unpredictable weather, increased insurance costs and Moscow’s control over the route make it unlikely to become a mainstream commercial corridor anytime soon, she added.
Europe also has leverage as the final customer for Chinese shipments, Vakhrusheva said.
“If the EU sends a strong message to China that they do not want goods shipped via NSR, China won’t use this route for transit,” she said. “For NSR to become a valid transit route you need two sides,” she said, “a seller on one side and a buyer on the other.”
5. Environmental protection
The strategy is light on measures to shield the Arctic from the impact of global warming. However, it does warn that increased shipping in an “inherently harsh and poorly charted environment” raises the risk of “catastrophic accidents, severe marine pollution” and hybrid interference.
“Increased shipping in the Arctic both exploits this vulnerability and exacerbates it,” said Dave Walsh, an adviser at the Clean Arctic Alliance NGO, citing carbon emissions, wastewater discharge and noise as some of the impacts of more traffic.
Safety and the environment have not been a priority for Moscow, said Vakhrusheva, and a shortage of high ice-class ships combined with the need to sell oil and gas “to whoever is ready to buy it” raises the risks.
Protections such as a ban on heavy fuel oil are still negotiated at the International Maritime Organization, where the EU is a key player, she said, adding that such measures will push up the cost of Arctic shipping.
The strategy says Brussels will push at the IMO to turn measures to limit black carbon — soot emitted by ships that falls on snow and ice and accelerates melting — from voluntary guidelines into binding rules.
It also calls for expanding the definition of Arctic waters to everything north of 60 degrees latitude, replacing the current boundary, which excludes much of the waters around Iceland and Norway from special Arctic shipping rules.
It also promises to keep pressing for compliance with the Polar Code through tools such as an IMO regulation that involves national maritime authorities inspecting foreign-flagged ships in Arctic ports to verify compliance with international safety, environmental and crew-qualification standards.
The document includes non-binding commitments on biodiversity loss and plans to boost ocean and Arctic research programs. It also promises to launch an “initiative to promote local public and private investment in the Arctic around blue economy sectors.”
Jakob Weizman contributed reporting.
