Ten European countries increase their military presence in the Baltic
Ten European countries, including the United Kingdom, will deploy additional military assets to protect underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.
The JEF is a coalition of 10 countries led by the United Kingdom, and including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.
AFP
Ten northern European countries members of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) decided on Tuesday to activate a “defense clause” providing for the deployment of additional military assets to protect underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, after several incidents .
“This includes maritime and air capabilities that will be deployed in the heart of the JEF region, constituting a military contribution to the protection of crucial underwater infrastructure,” the defense ministers of the ten countries said in a statement. after a meeting.
“This is the first time that a defense clause has been activated by the JEF,” they clarified, indicating that these activities would begin “at the beginning of December.” The JEF is a coalition of 10 countries led by the United Kingdom, and including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, associated around operational defense issues in northern Europe.
Send a signal to Russia
“This is about maritime surveillance, around twenty warships will be deployed in the Baltic Sea but also in areas of the North Atlantic to take into account the security situation and better protect crucial underwater infrastructure,” Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson said on public channel SVT. He stressed that it was a matter of confronting “a very serious security situation in the world, and in particular in our neighborhood”.
“We must be able to carry out this type of operation to defend our vital infrastructure, but also to send a signal to Russia,” he added. JEF countries agreed in October to strengthen security in the Baltic after a Finnish underwater gas pipeline had to be shut down due to a leak caused by “external” intervention.
Finnish police eventually established that the damage had apparently been caused by the anchor, found at the scene, of a Chinese merchant ship which had subsequently left the area. But this incident had aroused speculation after the explosions which ruptured in September 2022 the two Nord Stream submarine gas pipelines transporting Russian gas to Western Europe, in the midst of a standoff with Moscow over the war in Ukraine.
AFP
You found an error?Please let us know.
2023-11-29 01:12:20
#Northern #Europe #Ten #European #countries #increase #military #presence #Baltic
