Polish Prime Minister announces steps to strengthen NATO's control over Baltic waters
Kyiv • UNN
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte promised to increase military presence in the Baltic Sea after the incidents with the cables. Poland proposed to make the Baltic Sea a zone of enhanced NATO military control.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has promised to strengthen military security in the Baltic Sea, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday, reporting on information he received from Rutte, food UNN with reference to PAP.
Details
Tusk, who delivered Rutte's message as he opened a meeting of the Polish cabinet on Tuesday, said that security would take center stage in the political arena in 2025. This topic will also gain prominence during the Polish EU presidency, as merely hours remained before Warsaw was set to assume the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The announcement came a few days after Rutte announced that NATO would increase its military presence in the Baltic Sea.
Speaking about his recent talks with EU officials from Estonia and Finland, Tusk said: "The Polish voice has started to influence concrete decisions.
"After the first few incidents in the Baltic Sea, after these strange situations with Russian and Chinese vessels and after the disruption of various submarine cables in the Baltic Sea, which greatly concerned all the countries bordering the Baltic Sea, we proposed that the Baltic Sea should become a zone of enhanced military control by NATO and the Baltic States, similar to the protection of our airspace," Tusk said.
Addendum
The Baltic Sea has once again made international headlines after submarine cables connecting Finland and Estonia were damaged last week. This incident is the latest in a series of similar situations in the sea throughout 2024. Vice President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas said that the vessel involved in the latest incident belonged to the so-called "shadow fleet" of Moscow. This term refers to a group of old ships that Russia uses to transport its oil, especially in the Baltic Sea. This tactic helps Moscow avoid EU sanctions targeting Russian oil trade.