Friday, 19 June 2026

European officials are hesitant to commit naval ships to demining the Strait of Hormuz despite US President Donald Trump's push to open the waterway quickly.

Trump said at the leaders summit in Evian that ships are starting to transit the strait and it would be completely opened by Friday.

The operational timeline offered by US officials and outside experts is longer. A senior US official said it could take as many as two weeks for shipping through the strait to significantly increase, and even longer to return to pre-attack levels, according to Rigzone.

Retired US Navy officer Ben Cipperley said it could take 30 days or more to confidently declare the Strait of Hormuz mine-free, according to Rigzone.

The caution from European capitals follows recent reports of mines in the wider region. Omani officials warned seafarers last month to exercise caution after a suspected mine was spotted in its territorial waters.

The Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint for a significant share of seaborne crude and LNG cargoes leaving the Gulf. The gap between the White House's Friday timeline and the multi-week to multi-month assessments from naval specialists frames the near-term question for shipowners, insurers, and Gulf producers weighing when to restore normal transit patterns.

According to Rigzone, European reluctance centers on the risk to naval vessels assigned to clearance operations under a compressed political timetable set by Washington.

European delegations and the Marshall Islands pressed Brazil's COP30 Presidency at the Bonn mid-year climate talks to anchor the voluntary fossil fuel transition roadmap inside the formal UN negotiating track, Climate Home News reported. The 90-minute session in Germany centered on whether the roadmap Brazil committed to last year stays a side process or carries weight into the next stocktake response.

COP30 president André Aranha Corrêa do Lago pledged at the Belem closing plenary to produce a voluntary roadmap built in consultation with interested governments. Brazil is due to finish that work by November.

Switzerland, speaking for a bloc that includes South Korea and Mexico, said the roadmap must be a "sustained process, not a one-off report".

Moscow took the opposite line. Russia stayed silent at the Bonn session but argued in earlier written submissions that the roadmap should not appear in any document approved by governments at UN climate talks, Climate Home News reported.

Submissions stack up before November

Nearly 20 countries have filed formal opinions on the roadmap, alongside negotiating blocs representing small island states, the poorest countries, and the European Union. The first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels drew around 60 countries to Santa Marta, Colombia, in April.

Stakes for the 2028 stocktake

The procedural fight matters because the second global stocktake lands in 2028, and governments are likely to negotiate their response at COP33 the same year, with possible new emissions-cutting commitments on the table. A roadmap inside the UNFCCC track would feed those findings directly into the COP33 response text. A roadmap kept outside it would not.