Germany to host North Sea summit unsettled by Arctic tensions

Hamburg:European leaders meet in Germany on Monday to discuss North Sea energy and security cooperation, but fears over US designs on the Arctic island of Greenland may overshadow the talks.
The region has long worried about threats posed by Russia — but more recently tensions have surged over US President Donald Trump’s push for the autonomous territory of Denmark.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hosts the talks just days after Trump backed away from his threat to seize Greenland by force and level punitive tariffs against European NATO allies who stand in his way.
Trump said he had reached a “framework” agreement with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, but this sparked both relief and confusion as the details have not been disclosed.
“We will have to pay increased attention to all parts of NATO’s European territory,” Merz said Thursday after an extraordinary European Council meeting.
“This concerns the North above all.”
On the guest list Monday will be Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who visited Greenland on Friday, and representatives of NATO and the European Commission as well as Iceland.
Leaders from Norway, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium and Luxembourg are also expected, while Britain and France are sending ministers to the summit in the northern port city of Hamburg.
“Given the make-up of the meeting, I am certain that security in the High North will also be of interest to the participants,” said Steffen Meyer, spokesman for Merz.

Sabotage and surveillance

Formally, the aim of the summit is to push cross-border expansion of offshore wind energy, the hydrogen market and interconnected offshore infrastructure.
Security fears will be high on the agenda as the North and adjoining Baltic Seas have long been the targets of so-called “hybrid attacks” widely blamed on Russia.
Cargo ships linked to Russia have been suspected of sabotaging undersea communication cables and surveilling critical infrastructure.
In Germany, mysterious drone flights over airports, military bases and industrial sites have further unnerved authorities, who believe some were launched from ships sent by Russia.
Merz said last week that “maritime security” as well as “shared economic success in the North” would be topics for discussion in Hamburg.
The goal was to make the North Sea “the world’s largest reservoir of clean energy,” which he described as being of “crucial importance for a strong, secure and independent Europe”.
At the last North Sea summit in 2023, nations agreed to build up to 300 gigawatts of wind capacity by mid-century, with an intermediate target of 120 GW set for 2030.
But based on current trends, there will be just 82 GW of installed capacity by the end of the decade, according to consultancy Baringa.

Climate and security

Government sources have said addressing the industry’s “current difficulties” will be an issue in Hamburg.
Stumbling blocks have included logistical bottlenecks at ports, parts shortages and a grid infrastructure that struggles to handle additional and variable power.
There have also been fears about Chinese turbine makers entering the supply chain as European players seek to boost their own autonomy and industrial self-reliance.
Proponents of wind energy argue it is not only good for the climate but also for security, as such decentralised systems are more resilient to sabotage and attack than fossil fuel power plants, pipelines or oil tankers.
Simon Skillings of think tank E3G said that “we’ve learnt a lot over recent years from not just some of the hybrid attacks that have happened on infrastructure, but also looking at the Ukraine-Russia situation. We’ve learnt that dispersed assets are more resilient.
“A more dispersed infrastructure is more robust… You need basically multiple attacks rather than single attacks to knock out an energy supply.”
Skillings said offshore wind farms could help boost maritime security if surveillance equipment or drones are integrated into turbines.
But there is still “very little coordination on these issues in the North Sea”, he told AFP, adding that building resilience into the system would also drive up costs.