The prohibition of Deep Sea Mining (DSM) in Portuguese territorial waters for twenty-five years was promulgated in Diário da República (the official gazette of government) on 31 March 2025.

Portugal is one of the Earth´s foremost seafaring nations and has an economic exclusion zone (EEZ) covering an area of the Atlantic Ocean which possesses the greatest marine biodiversity in Europe the continental shelf of which extends well beyond the Azores archipelago. This final confirmation of legislation first proposed in year 2023 has been greeted world-wide by environmental activists who have repeatedly urged this desirable defence of maritime resources which is vital for the future wellbeing of humanity. It is in marked contrast to the reverse decision made by Norway to open its similarly vast EEZ to the ravages of supranational corporations which are intent on securing maximum profit from a mineral wealth that is supposedly necessary to power the “green” industrial revolution.

However, the initial joy has been cooled by the question of just how will our small nation, with its limited military resources, be able to patrol and police potential intrusions into its oceanic territory. In recent years, penetration into the EEZ by floating factories which deplete and process stocks of fish and amphibious mammals has largely been ignored due to both the magnitude of operations and the difficulty in identifying the true owners of vessels which fly “flags of convenience”. Armed intervention is unthinkable while the collation of evidence by GDP and presentation to an international court of justice involves an interminably long process during which time the offender has moved on to other locations or effects a change of flag.

Much more ominous is the existential threat posed by the new governance of USA INC of the annexation of territory that is thought to be of strategic and economic importance or, to put it in the big business context which is most familiar to its CEO, achieving a desired end by “merger and acquisition”.

It would not be the first time that the control of the Azores has been coveted by the USA. At the conference of the Atlantic Allies held in August 1941, President Roosevelt announced the intention of the USA to seize the archipelago by armed force. It was only through the insistence of the British diplomatic service that a lease was arranged with the regime of Dr. Salazar by using the Treaty of Windsor as a ruse to defeat German contentions.

At a time when the great land mass and even greater EEZ of Greenland is openly threatened with forcible acquisition and the economic resources of both Canada and Ukraine are coveted, it would be prudent for Portugal and the EU to prepare to “repel boarders” from the Ship of State.

Detailed references to both the subjects of DSM and the Azores were made in my essays published by The Portugal News on 19-02-2024 and 24-02-2023.

Roberto Cavaleiro - Tomar. 02-04-2025