Norway had intended to issue licences to drill for minerals in the deep sea across an area of almost 300,000 square kilometres between Norway, Greenland and Svalbard. However, concerns from scientists and marine conservationists that this would damage the Earth's last great untouched wilderness, namely the deep sea, were consistently voiced — as no one knows exactly what organisms live there, the precise ecological damage caused by various technical mining methods remains unpredictable.
The three left-green parties have now successfully conditionalised their support for the state budget on these licences not being issued until at least 2029. This represents a positive development for Europe's deep-sea ecosystems, and serves as a notable model of how policy objectives can be realised even when they are not shared by all governing parties. Other European nations may look to this as a precedent.
Source: https://de.euronews.com/green/2025/12/04/norwegen-stoppt-umstrittenen-tiefseebergbau-bis-2029
