Verbatim report of proceedings

Tuesday, 5 October 2021 - Strasbourg

The Arctic: opportunities, concerns and security challenges (debate)

  David McAllister, on behalf of the PPE Group. – Madam President, two weeks ago, as Anna Fotyga mentioned, the delegation of our Foreign Affairs Committee visited Denmark, Greenland and Iceland to discuss international cooperation and challenges in the Arctic.

Anna Fotyga, Željana Zovko, Urmas Paet and Andreas Schieder will probably agree; our visit demonstrated that the unique complexity of the challenges on the ground requires more engagement and solutions based on the knowledge and the will of the people living in the Arctic.

Furthermore, there is an urgent need for constructive international cooperation to counter emerging threats to stability in the entire High North. For this reason, I welcome the adoption of our timely report. Let me thank Anna Fotyga for her good work and I do hope, Commissioner Breton, that the Commission and the High Representative / Vice—President will soon present an ambitious new joint communication which takes our main messages into account. These are: to respond ambitiously to climate change and safeguarding the Arctic environment, to promote sustainable development and to strengthen international cooperation in order to address all the geopolitical challenges in the High North.

The Foreign Affairs Committee will keep the Arctic high on its agenda. Yes, indeed, there should be more EU in the Arctic and more Arctic in the EU.