Britain and Ireland will conduct live exercises to test their preparedness for incidents involving undersea cables, the two countries’ leaders said in a joint statement on Friday establishing enhanced maritime cooperation.
Citing a “more competitive environment” and increased hostile state activity, British Prime Minister Keir Stormer and his Irish counterpart Michael Martin said the exercises would begin in September 2026.
Subsea safety has become a growing concern among European nations following a series of power cable, telecom link and gas pipeline outages in the Baltic Sea region since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The new agreement will “enable information sharing and coordinated response mechanisms to address major subsea communication cable incidents that may affect our countries,” the statement said.
Ireland has applied to join the 2024 Treaty on Subsea Security, which covers the North Sea region joining Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Britain and Denmark.
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Ireland said last month it plans to boost radar and subsea surveillance capabilities and increase cooperation with NATO members amid growing hybrid threats in the North Atlantic.
Ireland is neutral and has one of the lowest levels of defense spending in the European Union, criticized for its lack of capacity to monitor and protect territorial waters.
(tags to translate)undersea cables
