Germany's Merz heads to Norway for talks on space, arms cooperation
Friedrich Merz will visit northern Norway to meet Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and observe NATO’s Cold Response drills with Mark Carney. The trip highlights cooperation on space, defense, and energy as Norway supplies a major share of Germany’s gas imports.
- World
- DPA
- Published Date: 08:54 | 12 March 2026
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will travel to northern Norway on Thursday, where he will meet with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in the evening.
On Friday, the two leaders plan to visit the Andøya Space Port in Andenes, from where rockets have been launched into space since the 1960s.
They will then continue on to the Bardufoss military base. There, Merz and Støre, together with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, will observe the Cold Response exercise, in which more than 30,000 soldiers from 14 NATO countries are participating in Norway and Finland, including 1,600 members of the German armed forces.
The visit will focus primarily on cooperation in the fields of space and arms, but also on energy supply. Some 48% of Germany's natural gas imports and 9% of its oil imports come from Norway.