EU unveils new Arctic strategy with focus on security

BRUSSELS, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The European Union on Tuesday presented a new Arctic strategy reflecting the region’s importance to security, with pledges to boost satellite surveillance, increase monitoring of undersea cables and help EU members buy icebreakers.

The Arctic is of growing interest to major powers including the US, Russia, China and Europe, as melting ice opens up new shipping routes.

US President Donald Trump tried to acquire Greenland, a territory of EU member Denmark, while friction has grown between Arctic nations and Russia since Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

"The Arctic is one place where the tectonic plates of geopolitics are colliding," said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the EU's executive body.

"When we see that sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the rules that have underpinned stability in the region can no longer be taken for granted, we have to act," she told reporters in Strasbourg.

EU officials say Moscow has reopened and modernised Soviet-era military bases in the Arctic region in recent years and pointed out that Russia has a large concentration of nuclear weapons on the Kola Peninsula, inside the Arctic Circle.

They say the Arctic has also become a testing ground for Russian missiles.

Russia, for its part, has accused the NATO alliance of driving the region towards militarization. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in August that Russia sought to preserve peace and stability and reduce threats to national security in the region.

EU PLANS TO BOOST PROTECTION OF SUBSEA CABLES

Reflecting increased concerns about the safety of vital undersea cables and pipelines, the EU strategy says it will set up a "maritime security hub" to share information between EU members and partners from various sources "from seabed to space".

As a first step, the EU plans to set up an Arctic cable hub to monitor, protect and help repair cables, according to the strategy, produced by the European Commission and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

The EU also aims to keep a closer eye on the Arctic as part of plans to expand its Copernicus satellite observation network.

The 27-country bloc - which includes Arctic nations Finland, Sweden and Denmark - also needs more icebreakers, the strategy says.

The new document - which did not put a price tag on its plans - is the first update to the EU's Arctic strategy since 2021 and the latest in a series of EU steps focusing on the region. Last month, von der Leyen unveiled plans for €200 million of EU investments in Greenland.