{"id":153797,"date":"2026-08-27T10:12:56","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T10:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/153797\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T10:12:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T10:12:56","slug":"on-norways-oslo-fjord-activists-battle-chemring-nobels-plan-for-europes-biggest-explosives-plant-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/153797\/","title":{"rendered":"On Norway\u2019s Oslo fjord, activists battle Chemring Nobel\u2019s plan for Europe\u2019s biggest explosives plant \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 2 April this year, a group of activists occupied an abandoned military barrack in Hurummarka, a region on Oslo\u2019s fjord, just south of the Norwegian capital.<\/p>\n

They had no access to clean water, and improvised a solar system for electricity to be able to stay in an old house on a shooting range that\u2019s lain inactive for a decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All this because one of Europe\u2019s leading arms manufacturers, and major Nato supplier, Norway\u2019s Chemring Nobel, wants to build the continent\u2019s largest explosives factory on that very land.<\/p>\n

The area that has become its own minor conflict zone is nestled in a small valley in Hordaland \u2013 although the area for the complex\u2019s feasibility study spans an enormous 22 square km.<\/p>\n

Five months after occupying the space, the activists from Norway plus other Nato member states have been holding events for the public, dealing with occasional police interference, while maintaining anonymity. <\/p>\n

Their names were changed in this piece to safeguard their identities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really hard job to be an anti-war activist in Europe right now,\u201d said Bjorn, a member of Knus Krigsmaskinen [Norwegian for \u2018Crush the War Machine\u2019].<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s pacifist ideology comes against the backdrop of Europe\u2019s rapid remilitarisation following Moscow\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, after the post-Cold War detente.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As countries in Nato raise their defence budgets and security anxiety spreads across the EU<\/a>, \u201cbreaking the normalised notion of needing more arms is one of our major obstacles,\u201d Anna, another activist, told EUobserver.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s making a conversation about war impossible to have without being painted as treasonous or na\u00efve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Norway’s booming economy relies heavily both on fossil-fuels and arms exports, the latter of which raked in \u20ac800m<\/a> in 2025 alone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The arms factory, that\u2019s been in planning since 2024, is more than just a sign of the widening military-industrial complex re-occupying the continent’s priorities.<\/p>\n

The fjord Chemring Nobel plans to build on has already had to ban fishing due to the already high levels of chemical pollution, while the area surrounding the expected plant is home to around 100,000 people with a rich biodiversity, including 53 species currently at risk of extinction.<\/p>\n

Chemring Nobel has been accused<\/a> of supplying materials used by the Israeli military, while its parent company, UK Chemring Group PLC, has US BlackRock as its largest shareholder.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The world’s largest asset-manager has been the subject of accusations by the United Nations<\/a> of \u201csustaining Israel\u2019s settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

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