Europe and Oil: the Arctic in Danger

The article argues that the European Union may be considering a major policy reversal by allowing Arctic oil exploitation, abandoning its long-standing environmental stance. This shift is justified by geopolitical tensions (e.g., around the Strait of Hormuz), but the author criticizes it as short-sighted and environmentally dangerous.

With unusual boldness, the Financial Times has recently published a leading article based not only on verified information – as is the tradition of the prestigious London daily—but as well on rumors, leaks, and indiscretions. Mostly coming from Brussels and Oslo, though certainly read with great interest in Berlin.

According to EU sources, or at least to personalities rather close to them, the leadership of the European Union, confronted with the incoming new energy crisis, seems to be seriously considering the possibility of backtracking on one of the main pillars that has shaped the current worldview over the past fifty years: environmental awareness, concern and initiative. And, by abandoning its opposition to oil exploitation in the Arctic region, proceed to a further step on a way already marked by the recent postponement of the date after which in Europe it will no longer be legal to market cars with internal combustion engines.

Such a move would mark a clear U-turn from a line the EU has in the recent past fought in favor of with remarkable vigor, in order to protect environmental quality north of the Arctic Circle, a part of the planet which the EU shares global responsibility for, together with Russia, Canada, an Norway. Yet a hemisphere that has already suffered a serious blow from oil exploitation in Alaska – a territory that belongs to the far north of the world, but whose development has nevertheless been heavily influenced by the interests of the so called lower forty-eights: the contiguous continental landmass of the United States of America. And also a hemisphere whose fragile most northern part, where permafrost prevails over land, sand and rock, is now threatened by the increasingly plausible opening up of a new maritime route, shorter and more cost-effective than the “Silk Roads”, the trade routes linked to China’s rapid– and strongly outward-looking – development.

The Brussels authorities – is indeed pointed out by the London daily – have hitherto not only actively worked to ensure that north of the Arctic Circle “oil, coal, and gas would remain underground.” At least until 2021, the European Union had been very active in promoting bans on drilling and exploration. But, confronted with the likely consequences of the chaotic developments presently taking place after the Israeli-US military attack on Iran, the group of 27 now appears on the verge of radically changing its position.

A strategic reversal

At the present stage, these are only rumors, of course – supported, however, by documents, drafts, and still preliminary plans that said to be circulating in Brussels. Nonetheless, they point to a genuine “strategic reversal,” one that cannot but provoke outrage and firm opposition from all those aware of the tragedy it would bring to all living beings.

At this early stage, even if somewhat cautioned by the discredit and universal contempt into which the current though probably already fleeting “squatter of the White House” has fallen, the greedy reactionaries who are behind this idea, and believe they can further increase their wealth and power through this about-face, are proceeding cautiously.

Yet discussions on this issue – and on the pretexts to justify it – have already begun, with pseudo-forecast studies aimed at calculating the impact of the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. Pessimistic forecasts are being circulated, according to which the aggression against Iran carried out by Israel and its American ally could even be compared, in terms of its disruptive consequences, to the cumulative effects of the three oil crises experienced over the past half-century. And these scenarios are being used to push Brussels authorities toward liberalizing the extraction of oil, coal, and natural gas resources North of the Arctic Circle.

The inconsistency of this pretext is evident. Nor would it be rational for the tactical maneuvers and counter-maneuvers unfolding around Hormuz over the past two months to alter Europe’s long-term strategic objectives based on political and military developments that are not yet definitively compromised. In short, it seems somewhat hasty to change long-term goals while Donald Trump plays an awkward diplomatic game alongside an actor that may be arrogant but remains essentially regional, such as Israel. Moreover, this game is not yet settled and is being effectively countered by other actors involved both locally and globally: Iran and the powers sympathetic to Tehran, such as Moscow and Beijing.

Some of the documents glimpsed so far in this unfolding situation in and around Brussels, however, appear to consider a broader and more long-term global evolution. In other words, the issue would be to assess Europe’s interest in a hypothetical—but not impossible, and perhaps not even unlikely—scenario in which evolving relations with the United States might no longer guarantee Europe access to the energy resources it needs within the current balance of global powers.

In other words, there is an emerging consideration of a global economic system evolving into large, autarkic blocs striving for self-sufficiency. Naturally, the impact of such a shift would be scandalous, given the tragedies it risks reproducing. Yet it is a fact that Europe would be the part of the world most involved and most harmed.

Such a prospect appears unacceptable to those who attribute greater importance to long-term global environmental balances than to any short-term circumstances arising from economic or strategic crises – indeed crises that may be resolvable by means that could even be military, but are in any case short-term.

It would indeed be catastrophic, if not criminal, to make decisions today aimed at realizing a vision of a world fragmented into largely self-sufficient parts, each closed in on itself, in the absence of a global framework of economic and environmental compatibility. Otherwise, it would mean accepting not only the end but even a regression of the globalization process. A truly dramatic regression from a condition that enabled a quarter-century of development without inflation and the lifting of one billion human beings from absolute poverty to relative well-being.

Cui prodest?

As is obvious in cases such as this, one question arises almost immediately: cui prodest? Who would benefit from such an evolution?
The Financial Times answers this question according to hardly disputable criteria, pointing out that the main beneficiary would be a country that doesn’t belong to the European Union: Norway. A country which together with Russia is the most active in developing oil and gas extraction in the Arctic region.

But it stresses that he opportunities and resources offered by the natural environment have, in the present international politico-strategic conjuncture, effectively turned Norway at least in the eyes of other less endowed European nations – into something close to a “war profiteer” And this according to the blunt definition given by Trump—clearly envious that someone other than himself and his associates can profit (and without insider trading) from the fluctuations in oil prices that he himself has triggered.

Moreover, Norway is a democracy that enjoys such an situation itself to clash with Washington by divesting from companies such as Caterpillar, which collaborate with Israel in the repression of Palestinians, as reported by the same London newspaper. This has enabled Norway to accumulate a sovereign wealth fund of $2.2 trillion derived from the exploitation of the Barents Sea.

The financial daily also briefly mentions the interests and positions of the Baltic states, whose representatives—unsurprisingly—hold significant roles within the core of Brussels’ power system, the European Commission, second only to Germany’s influence, in a way that does not correspond to the EU’s economic and demographic balances.

This is a clear and undeniable sign of an ongoing process in Europe: a movement toward recreating a situation in which Germany would once again become not only the continent’s leading military power but also a major economic power. Characterized by the same factors that were already evident at the outset of both the First and Second World Wars, which ensured Germany’s self-sufficiency in food and in coal and steel – then the key strategic resources. All this within a strongly integrated Europe, but one very different from the “Common European Home” envisioned at the beginning of the extraordinary and long sought historical process that eventually led to the collapse of the USSR, and to the vanishing of the very reasons of the Cold War.