WARSAW – Europe should consider reinforcing Baltic Sea cables to protect them from sabotage, Dutch Security Minister David van Weel told Euractiv in an interview.

Speaking on the sidelines of an EU home affairs meeting in Warsaw on Thursday, van Weel said the undersea cables were laid according to regulations that did not account for deliberate sabotage.

NATO warships have increased patrols in the Baltic Sea after several cables in the region were damaged during recent months, most recently on Sunday.

European officials have accused Russia of using a ‘shadow fleet’ of sea vessels to cut cables by dragging their anchors along the seabed.

“What does that mean for how we design those cables?” said van Weel.

Deliberate sabotage

The centre-right Dutch politician told Euractiv that ministers had discussed the idea of reinforcing undersea infrastructure in their closed-door gathering in Warsaw, though not in great detail.

“Those cables have been built by regulations that never took into account active sabotage at sea,” van Weel said.

The current rules do not require undersea infrastructure to have extra protection when it is in a shipping lane, he added. “Why? Because, normally, people do not anchor in the shipping lane.”

Therefore, it is easy to travel in a shipping lane without raising suspicion “because everybody does,” he said. Without reinforced infrastructure, individuals can easily cause damage by dropping anchor.

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Source: Euractiv.com