22OCT

EU Arctic Strategy backs Greenland cable

3 min read

17:24UTC

The Commission adopted an Arctic Strategy on 20 October backing a Pan-Arctic Cable to link Greenland directly to Europe, plus IRIS² government satellite links for the region.

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Key takeaway

The EU pledged a Greenland-to-Europe cable and Arctic satellite links, without cost or timetable.

The European Commission adopted an Arctic Strategy on 20 October that commits the EU to support the Pan-Arctic Cable "linking Greenland directly to Europe" and to provide government satellite links through IRIS² Arctic Connectivity, the Arctic slice of the EU's planned secure satellite network⁠¹. As a first step it backs an Arctic Cable Hub to monitor, protect and help repair subsea cables in the North Atlantic and Arctic, inside a new Maritime Security Hub. The release attaches no budget figure and no date to the cable or to IRIS² Arctic Connectivity.

Henna Virkkunen, the Executive Vice-President whose portfolio also covers the AI Act supervision that gained its fining power this summer, visited Greenland on 24 and 25 September. According to the Commission, she was scheduled to meet Greenland's premier, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, and to tour the satellite ground station of Tusass⁠², Greenland's only telecoms operator, which Greenland's government owns outright⁠³. The visit followed the Joint Declaration that the EU, Greenland and Denmark signed during Ursula von der Leyen's own visit earlier in September.

Greenland's 56,740 people live in coastal towns with no roads between them, so travel is by sea or air only⁠⁴. Its only international cable, Tusass's Greenland Connect, runs from Nuuk to Canada and Iceland; none lands in the EU⁠⁵. The Pan-Arctic Cable would give the territory a route that lands directly in the EU.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Greenland is the world's largest island. It is part of the Kingdom of Denmark but runs most of its own affairs, and it is not in the EU. Its internet and phone traffic to the rest of the world runs through one undersea cable, Greenland Connect, which goes to Canada and Iceland. Tusass, the state-owned telecoms company, runs it. The EU's new Arctic plan says it will support a new cable linking Greenland straight to Europe, and satellite links from IRIS², a secure satellite network the EU is building. It also plans a centre to watch over and help repair undersea cables in the region.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Greenland's geography makes every link expensive. Its towns are not joined by roads, so data and people move by sea, air, satellite or cable, and each route serves a small population spread along thousands of kilometres of coast.

Greenland Connect was built westward because North America and Iceland are the nearest landing points. A direct link to the EU means a longer, costlier route across the North Atlantic.

Security has changed the arithmetic. Damage to Baltic cables and US interest in the island have turned a commercial question about bandwidth into one about who controls the island's outside links.

What could happen next?

Opportunity
A second international cable would reduce Greenland's exposure to a single point of failure.
Long term · Suggested
Risk
EU infrastructure on Greenland may sharpen friction with a US administration that has said it wants the territory.
Medium term · Suggested
Consequence
The Arctic Cable Hub gives the EU a monitoring role over North Atlantic subsea cables that NATO members have so far led.
Medium term · Suggested

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from Belgium

Belgium×2

Primary parallel: EllaLink, the subsea cable between Portugal and Brazil that went live in 2021, was co-funded by the EU through its BELLA programme. Brussels paid to give a partner region a data route that did not pass through the US.

Counter-parallel: In September 2018 Denmark agreed to help finance new Greenland airports after a Chinese state contractor was shortlisted to build them. Copenhagen secured the project by paying for it; the Arctic Strategy commits support for the cable without yet saying who pays.

Consensus view: the Commission treats Arctic cables as security infrastructure rather than as telecoms. Its strategy places the Arctic Cable Hub inside a new Maritime Security Hub, the same frame NATO capitals have used for North Atlantic seabed protection since cable incidents in the Baltic.

Counter-view: The US administration has said openly that it wants Greenland, and reads European projects on the island as competition for influence. For Greenland's own government, which owns the operator Tusass outright, a European cable is one more partner to bargain with rather than a choice of camp.

Key tension: Whether an EU-backed cable gives Nuuk more room to manoeuvre between Brussels and Washington, or binds Greenland's connectivity to European security policy it does not set.

Sources:European Commission·European Commission·Tusass

Mentions:European Commission →Henna Virkkunen →Denmark →Ursula von der Leyen →Canada →Iceland →United States →Brazil →Washington →Portugal →Brussels →NATO →North America →

First Reported In

Update #17 · EU questions AI labs over loss of control

European Commission· 22 Oct 2026

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Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.