Norway’s Arctic oil and gas pitch to Europe is built on exaggeration, not energy securityNorway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre has been vigorously touring the continent since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, telling everybody who wants to listen that Norway’s Arctic oil and gas are crucial for Europe’s energy security. But is it?
Norway is pushing Brussels to rethink its long-standing opposition to oil and gas development in the European Arctic, pushing the EU into reviewing its strategy. But would it meaningfully increase Europe’s energy security? And at what environmental cost?
![Kaupo Rosin, director general of the Estonian foreign intelligence service: 'Most [Russian] soldiers have a low IQ level; they are convicts from the lowest strata of society. This is not an army you could use for sophisticated operations. Instead, they keep sending in troops blindly, sending them to their deaths'](https://static.euobserver.com/2026/04/1.webp)
Estonia’s foreign intelligence service chief Kaupo Rosin reflects on a whole-of-society approach to defence, one unexpected threat to Europe, and what he realised at 16.
The European Arctic is, above all, European — and it is time Brussels treated it that way. The European Arctic produces a disproportionate share of Europe’s food security, energy supply and strategic raw materials. The gap between what this region contributes and what it receives in political attention is not a detail. It is a strategic failure.
