European Institute

As the Arctic melt-down opens new access for transport and for production of oil and gas fields in these waters, the Nordic nations of Europe have been galvanized into looking for ways to forge joint arrangements for civilian protection against disasters in these freshly-accessible zones – possibly with links to their defense establishments. A new high-level report, Nordic Cooperation on Foreign and Security Policy – commissioned by the Nordic Council and written by Thorvald Stoltenberg, a former foreign minister of Norway – lays out the changing stakes that are emerging in the Arctic as the ice cap shrinks, and then goes on to emphasize the need for littoral nations to pool resources to meet the associated new security challenges there – both for surveillance and for crisis-response. “The Nordic countries are responsible for the management of large sea areas. Climate change and melting of the sea ice will open the way for considerable activity in these areas, including new shipping routes through Arctic waters to the Pacific Ocean. This means that Nordic cooperation in the northern seas and the Arctic is highly relevant,” the report concludes.