Jonas Gahr Støre is travelling to Brussels on Thursday with a mission: to persuade the EU to abandon its planned Arctic oil brake. If implemented, Norway would be unable to continue meeting the EU’s demand for oil and gas. Most of Norway’s reserves are located within the Arctic. In reality, Støre has cancelled Norway’s climate targets. They will be impossible to achieve under the extraction trajectory he is pursuing.

Norway has long sought to persuade the EU to abandon its demand for an Arctic oil brake. Nearly two-thirds of Norway’s oil and gas reserves are located in the northern regions.

This spring, a stream of Norwegian politicians has travelled to Brussels, among other things to ask the EU to scrap the oil moratorium.

“Norway is very active and highly effective at making its voice heard,” the EU’s Special Envoy for the Arctic, Claude Veron-Reville, told Bloomberg at the end of May.

The issue was also raised when Støre met the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, at the Oslo Security Conference in February.

“A moratorium should be reconsidered,” was Støre’s clear message to Kallas.

The right hand does not always know what the left hand is doing. Støre presumably enjoys considerable support within the EU for maintaining extraction. Norway plays an invaluable role after Russia was phased out. It is Norway’s proximity to European markets and its political loyalty that make it indispensable to the EU. The climate targets threaten that supply.

The EU is working on a new Arctic strategy that is scheduled to be launched in September. It could have major consequences for Norway.

“The Arctic and the northern regions will be topics in several of the meetings I will have in Brussels,” Støre confirmed to NTB.

“With our geographical location and unique expertise, Norway is a key partner for the EU on these issues,” he said.

Pressed for an Oil Brake

Since 2021, when the previous strategy was introduced, the EU has pushed for an international oil moratorium, meaning a halt to oil and gas production in the Arctic, for climate reasons.

It is almost incomprehensible that parts of the EU can press for a halt to extraction at a time when industrial jobs are disappearing to China. What is Europe supposed to live on?

Støre is due to meet Jyrki Katainen, the EU’s Special Adviser for the Arctic, and the EU Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jozef Síkela, who is responsible for the EU’s Arctic policy.

The EU has realised the seriousness of the situation and is preparing for a complete reversal, according to the Financial Times.

And the EU may be on the verge of making a U-turn, reported the Financial Times at the end of April. The backdrop is the war in the Middle East, including the closure of the strategically important Strait of Hormuz, and the war in Ukraine, which has made the EU more dependent on Norwegian gas.

Norway’s position has therefore been strengthened, but will Støre use that position to advance Norwegian interests? It does not appear so. He allows himself to be pressured.

In his talks with von der Leyen and Costa, the large backlog of EU legal acts that have not been incorporated into the EEA Agreement will also likely be discussed. This has long caused considerable irritation within the EU. In particular, this concerns five legal acts in the energy sector that the Labour government has put in a drawer.

When Norway stands up for oil and gas, it is defending its own interests: revenue streams and influence. In those cases, the government suddenly finds a degree of resolve towards the EU that is otherwise seldom seen.

The government also points out that the law of the sea grants Norway a sovereign right to exploit resources on its own continental shelf, something a moratorium would not be able to affect.

The government has changed its view on extraction in the north. It is a major political shift in direction. The signs were there many years ago, when Støre cooperated with his friend Tschudi Madsen and envisioned large-scale cooperation with Russia. That dream collapsed with the invasion of Georgia.

Norway is now playing an active and offensive role in the struggle over the High North, and it is not certain that the public understands how Norway’s role has changed in character. Støre enjoys the role of political operator. Norway has quietly become a strategic partner for the forces seeking a reckoning with Russia. They are using the estrangement from Trump to advance European defence.

In that process, the environmental organisations are being sacrificed. They have been sidelined.

In Brussels, Støre will also be met by an appeal from seven Norwegian environmental organisations – WWF World Wide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace, Bellona Europa, the Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature, the Zero Emissions Resource Organisation (ZERO), Young Friends of the Earth Norway, and the Nordic Centre for Sustainable Finance.

The organisations believe that Støre is trying to sell a castle in the air to Brussels. It could take several decades before production from new Arctic fields is operational. In addition, the infrastructure needed to transport oil and gas from northern fields to the European market is not yet in place.

By then, the EU aims to have drastically reduced its consumption of oil and gas. (NTB)

That is not going to happen. Norway will deliver, and Norway earns so much that it can finance a European defence. No one else has that much money.