The West must work to prevent China and Russia from seizing control of the new maritime route opening up in the Arctic and turning it into a chokepoint on global trade, the European Union’s chief diplomat has warned.
Brussels is due to announce a more muscular approach to asserting Europe’s interests against Beijing and Moscow in the High North.
This updated strategy, to be unveiled on Wednesday, will include a surveillance centre for tracking suspicious shipping activity, support for military-grade ports and airports for the rapid deployment of troops, and a hub for monitoring and repairing subsea data cables in case of sabotage.
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It is designed to counter Sino-Russian efforts to dominate the Arctic Circle. There is particular concern about the Northern Sea Route (NSR) over the top of Russia, which is increasingly becoming a significant alternative to the Suez Canal as the sea ice retreats due to the effects of global warming.
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Western naval strategists suggest that the two hostile powers are extending their military capabilities along the NSR, which largely skirts Russia’s territorial waters and is already starting to be plied by commercial shipping from China and other Pacific states to Europe. During the summer months, the voyages are at least a third faster than the established route through the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
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China claims the status of a “near-Arctic” country, despite its northernmost point being on roughly the same latitude as Manchester and Hamburg, and all of its significant commercial ports being more southerly than Turkey. It has begun sending research fleets of icebreakers to the High North and has tried to acquire critical resources on Greenland.
“It’s not an Arctic country, that’s for sure, but we need to understand the Chinese are always very strategic about the steps they are taking, and that’s why I think we need to be very strategic in the Arctic as well,” Kallas said.
“They [and Russia] are actually mapping the region to understand where the possibilities are … This is what they are doing in other waters as well to map the cables, to map the connectivity, so that this is also our vulnerability. It’s clear that this is not only scientific research for the sake of climate change.”
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The EU’s existing Arctic strategy, published in 2021, was primarily concerned with the environmental effects of global warming and pollution.
The updated version is a much more geopolitical statement of intent. It will commit to building up Europe’s icebreaker fleet and allocating €260m for Arctic-capable military technologies such as extreme-weather aircraft and long-range sensors.
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Kallas said “European security is Arctic security” because of trade, energy, communications and military factors, including the vast concentration of Russian nuclear weapons on the Kola Peninsula next to Finland and Norway.
That leaves it reliant on partners that are recalibrating their ties to the bloc. Canada is negotiating an unprecedented “associate membership” of the EU. Iceland voted at the end of August to reject accession talks but indicated that it wished to deepen economic relations.
Norway is similarly perched just outside the EU but gingerly seeking closer alignment. Britain, which among other things provides a base for European Arctic aerial surveillance missions at RAF Lossiemouth, is also gradually drawing nearer.
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Asked about Andy Burnham’s suggestion that the UK could try to reverse Brexit should Labour win the next election, Kallas said most Europeans would welcome Britain back.
“The Brexit process has definitely left scars on many people in Europe, especially those who were part of the negotiations,” she said. “But that said … coming from my own country [Estonia], I can tell you that we were very sad when the UK left because you were our good allies and we really enjoyed working with you there.”
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