The Norwegian government recently applied for full membership of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. Stefan Gänzle and Marco Pietro D’Attoma write that the threat posed by Russia has shown Norway can no longer manage security in Northern Europe from the sidelines.
For much of the post-Cold War era, the Baltic Sea area drifted quietly out of Europe’s strategic imagination. That calm is gone. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Donald Trump’s diplomatic pressure on Greenland have thrust the “Wider North” globally, and the Baltic Sea area regionally, back into the geopolitical spotlight.
What was once a largely cooperative maritime space has rapidly become a frontline region (again) for deterrence focusing on the protection of critical infrastructure and shipping routes threatened by Russia’s shadow fleet.
Norway in the new North-East
Few developments capture this transformation more clearly than the reshaping of the region’s political and security architecture since 2022. Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO have turned the Baltic Sea into what is, in effect, both an EU and a NATO lake (with the important exception of the Russian regions of Kaliningrad and Leningrad) – an outcome that would have seemed implausible even after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Yet this consolidation coincides with growing uncertainty within the transatlantic alliance itself. Donald Trump’s transactional attitude toward NATO, coupled with his aggressive rhetoric toward Greenland, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, has unsettled long-held assumptions about American security guarantees in the North.
Against this backdrop, Norway finds itself navigating a markedly altered strategic environment in the North and the North-East. For decades, it occupied a distinctive position there: one of only two (together with Denmark) Nordic NATO members, and the only one sharing a direct land border with Russia. That uniqueness has faded since 2023. Instead, Norway is adjusting to a neighbourhood increasingly shaped by EU policies and regional cooperation frameworks – particularly around the Baltic Sea.
It is in this context that in late 2025 Norway decided to seek full membership in the framework of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR), which encompasses Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. There is a precedent for this as non-EU countries North Macedonia and San Marino joined the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR) as full members in 2020 and 2022 respectively, underlining the growing appeal of these flexible governance arrangements in an era of geopolitical fragmentation.
Negotiations on Norway’s accession to the EUSBSR are ongoing and expected to close before spring 2026. The final decision rests with the European Commission and EU member states. Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide has been explicit about this shift, arguing that the Baltic Sea region matters more to Norway today than it did a decade ago due to the challenging security situation.
Full participation in the EUSBSR would give Norway a seat at the table in the National Coordinators’ Group, the strategy’s key decision-making body, as well as other monitoring committees. That is not only symbolic. It would allow Norway to shape priorities and ensure continuity between national security concerns and regional cooperation.
Norway and the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region
Launched in 2009, the EUSBSR was the EU’s first macro-regional strategy, designed to foster lean cooperation across national borders without creating new institutions or funding streams.
Instead, it seeks to help align existing policies and resources around shared priorities such as environmental protection, infrastructure, innovation and civil security. The strategy builds on a dense web of earlier cooperative efforts, including those led by the Nordic Council of Ministers and various Nordic-Baltic formats as well as HELCOM and the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS). The latter two previously featured Russia prior to the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Norway has been associated with the EUSBSR as a partner country from the start, although according to an interview we have conducted with an official from the Norwegian Department of Regional Policy, it was “too little involved… at the beginning”. In practice, close involvement proved politically difficult as it would have created different levels of partnership.
None of the Baltic countries wanted Russia as a full member, while several of the other Baltic Sea states, plus Germany, did not want to alienate Moscow at the time of the North Stream project. The compromise therefore was a looser partnership model.
As relations with Russia deteriorated, Norwegian actors, particularly those involved in EU territorial cooperation programmes such as Interreg, worked to keep the strategy relevant for Norwegian stakeholders. What has changed now is not Norway’s interest, but the geopolitical reality.
A pragmatic response to an unsettled world
Clearly, Norway’s engagement with the Baltic Sea region is not new. Norway has been a member of both HELCOM and the CBSS since the beginning. Cities like Arendal and Kristiansand have participated in Baltic cooperation since the early 1990s through networks such as the Union of Baltic Cities. What is new is the security dimension.
Russia’s exclusion from regional cooperation has forced a rethinking of governance structures, with proposals to link bodies like the CBSS more closely to either NATO or EU frameworks. Hybrid threats, undersea infrastructure sabotage and energy security now sit alongside environmental protection as core regional concerns.
While Norway has long been an active partner in Baltic Sea cooperation, becoming a full member represents a strategic recalibration rather than a bureaucratic upgrade. It signals a recognition that resilience, sustainability and security in Northern Europe can no longer be managed from the sidelines.
Ultimately, Norway’s turn toward deeper Baltic Sea engagement reflects a pragmatic response to an unsettled world. By aligning more closely with EU strategies and frameworks, Norway strengthens its influence in a region that has become a beacon in the defence of European security and stability.
As Nordic and Baltic cooperation intensifies, the Baltic Sea is emerging not just as a line of defence but as a test case for how Europe organises itself in an age of uncertainty. For Norway, weathering future storms will mean recognising that sovereignty and security are no longer protected alone or via NATO, but rather through smart, sustained regional cooperation under the umbrella of the EU.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of LSE European Politics or the London School of Economics.
Image credit: SvedOliver provided by Shutterstock.
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