Ten countries have agreed to protect energy infrastructure and undersea internet cables in the North Sea from potential sabotage.
During the North Sea Conference in Hamburg, an agreement was reached between ten countries on the joint deployment of military resources to protect infrastructure in the North Sea. In addition to Belgium, the Netherlands and France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Iceland and Luxembourg signed the agreement, reports NOS.
The countries will conduct military exercises in cooperation with NATO to search for suspicious (Russian) ships. Thousands of kilometers of internet cables lie on the bottom of the North Sea, connecting the European mainland with the United Kingdom and the United States.
Protection against sabotage
Cutting one cable will not immediately cripple the internet (the failure of data centers or cyber attacks have a greater impact on that), but its main purpose is to cause unrest. At the end of 2024, several cables in the Baltic Sea were damaged. Russia is invariably the prime suspect in such sabotage attempts, although that is often a tit-for-tat game. During the conference, the Dutch government called for stricter protection of internet cables.
The signed agreement also includes joint investments in and protection of energy infrastructure. In the coming years, tens of billions of euros will be invested in the construction of wind farms in the North Sea by 2030. In this way, Europe wants to invest in its own energy supply and become less dependent on energy from third parties (read: Russian gas).