Competition for the Arctic is intensifying just as worries about the melting of the polar ice cap are deepening. Soaring energy prices are making Arctic exploration and production of oil and gas feasible, even though still some time away.

Europe’s energy security means it must continue to look for shorter-term solutions in regions like the Caspian and Middle East, but it must also make strategic decisions about the Arctic, which some geological estimates suggest could contain up to 22% of the world's undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves. What will be the future role of the Arctic in the provision of European energy security? Is the Arctic likely to present a new test of the EU’s capacity to speak with one voice on energy?

As Arctic exploration will demand a truly international approach, what could be Norway’s contribution to the sustainable development of the region and what might be the impact on Arctic ecological and social systems of a potential oil and gas bonanza there?

The Arctic “will not provide the magical solution we are looking for”, but guaranteeing Europe’s energy security justifies the exploration of even the most hostile environments in the search for more oil and gas stocks, EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs told participants at the lunch debate co-organised by Friends of Europe and StatoilHydro.

While the Norwegian company’s CEO Helge Lund conceded that the size of the Arctic’s hydrocarbon resources were unknown and could take over a decade to be brought to the market, he stressed that “having options is always a good thing” as “any realistic energy strategy in the future will have to rely on oil and gas”.

But WWF Director Stephan Singer accused governments and energy companies of creating a “perverse situation” by choosing to drill “a very fragile ecosystem that is already basically dying”, rather than working on reducing our dependency on inefficient oil and gas and investing more in renewable energies.