Expert SpeakRaisina Debates
Published on Jul 30, 2026
As law and power collide at Hormuz, Europe is being forced to choose between staying above the fray and shaping the rules that govern it
The Hormuz crisis has demonstrated how pitting wartime sovereignty claims against the “right of transit passage” guaranteed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) can transform maritime chokepoints into instruments of coercion and geoeconomic pressure. Under Article 38 of UNCLOS (Part III), all ships and aircraft enjoy a right of transit passage through international straits — a right that, under Article 44, cannot be suspended.
What unfolded at Hormuz, however, was neither full compliance nor outright breach. Through a ‘selective blockade’, certain states and flagged vessels were allowed through the strait while others were denied, with access determined by power politics and geopolitical alignment rather than law. This was enforced through sea mines, drones, and deliberate ambiguity — tactics that conferred an asymmetric advantage while violating the Hague Convention VIII (1907) on the laying of naval mines.
Such conduct runs against a long-standing customary principle. The doctrine of freedom of navigation, articulated in Hugo Grotius’s Mare Liberum (1609), holds that established sea lanes cannot be legally monopolised or controlled by any state, whether coastal or external. Hormuz is therefore a textbook case of a maritime chokepoint being weaponised: maritime geography itself used as leverage.
The deeper concern is normalisation. If such tactics become routine, the world’s critical waterways will be governed less by settled law than by power politics, geoeconomic coercion, and competing sovereignty claims that shift between peacetime legal adherence on the one hand and wartime or grey-zone reality on the other. That shift creates real enforceability challenges, as contested legal interpretations — of ‘transit passage’, ‘innocent passage’, and ‘aggression’ — collide in an emerging contest of maritime lawfare.
Europe’s Response to the Hormuz Crisis under EMASOH
Europe’s diversification away from Russian oil following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has increased its reliance on Gulf energy markets, leaving it more exposed to oil price volatility. Around seven percent of Europe’s total LNG inflows pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and any squeeze on that supply raises industrial energy costs, which in turn strain the very clean-energy initiatives Europe is trying to fund. This is the geoeconomic logic of the crisis: even a minor disruption at the strait can produce major spillovers, allowing one side to strain an adversary financially.
For Iran, Hormuz is a question of security and survival. Tehran has favoured a ‘toll system’ — extracting value from transit.
As the conflict reshapes the region, the central question for Europe is not whether it has the bandwidth for diplomacy, but whether the warring parties take it seriously enough as a mediator.
Europe recognised these vulnerabilities early. The 2019 Gulf tanker crisis, which followed the US’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), exposed the same fault lines. As the conflict reshapes the region, the central question for Europe is not whether it has the bandwidth for diplomacy, but whether the warring parties take it seriously enough as a mediator.
Against this backdrop, Europe sought to distance itself from the great-power rivalry by framing its maritime role as the protection of global commerce rather than the taking of sides — a stance that lent it legitimacy among neutral commercial stakeholders. It neither joined the US-led military coalition as a partner nor remained a passive observer. To address any future uncertainty, the European Maritime Awareness in the Strait of Hormuz (EMASOH) was officially launched on 20 January 2020, with its operational military arm, Operation AGENOR, in February 2020. EMASOH aimed to enhance maritime situational awareness, ensure a safe navigation environment, and act as an instrument of European strategic autonomy. It advocated de-escalation, diplomatic signalling, and the protection of commercial shipping. European frigates rotate throughout the mission. France, for instance, has deployed its La Fayette-class frigate Guépratte and an Atlantique 2 (ATL2) maritime patrol aircraft. It further advocated for a post-conflict maritime stabilisation and multinational escorts framework. While EMASOH underlined Europe’s primary response to Hormuz tensions since its inception till 2023, it entered into a dormancy phase since 2024 with the launch of ‘Operation ASPIDES’.
The reasons lay in EMASOH’s limited design and Europe’s internal divisions. Despite anticipating the risks, its mandate never extended beyond surveillance, situational awareness, and confidence-building and rescue missions. More fundamentally, Europe’s response was fragmented: member states perceived crises differently and lacked a unified foreign policy, shared threat assessment, and common command structure. And unlike NATO, EMASOH relied on voluntary national contributions, which constrained its operational capabilities.
Even France — a lead member — coordinated its response bilaterally with the UK rather than through EMASOH. The UK, for its part, acted almost entirely outside the mission: its commitment to safeguarding shipping in Hormuz included drones, fighter jets, and warships such as HMS Dragon, backed by £115 million for mine-hunting drones and counter-drone systems.
From EMASOH’s Operational Invisibility to Operation ASPIDES
Contemporary European maritime security has shifted focus towards Operation ASPIDES in the Red Sea, reflecting a geographical transition from safeguarding energy corridors in the Gulf to protecting commercial shipping against persistent Houthi attacks in the Bab-el-Mandeb and Red Sea. Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, pointed out that the EU has “no appetite” to expand the naval mission in the Middle East into the Strait of Hormuz, thereby avoiding belligerent political signalling. She further argued that the Red Sea remains the EU’s top priority. Despite its operational invisibility, EMASOH’s strategic priorities have translated into other maritime theatres, with corridor security evolving from a threat-perception exercise into the safeguarding of interconnected sea lanes of communication.
The 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis has prompted Europe to adopt a pragmatic and coordinated maritime security strategy grounded in safeguarding freedom of navigation while avoiding any offensive military operations. The EU considered expanding the mandate of Operation ASPIDES, rather than creating a new institutional framework to undertake mine-clearing operations and maritime security tasks in the Strait of Hormuz. France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Japan, and others issued a joint statement in March 2026 condemning attempts to obstruct commercial navigation, reaffirming that freedom of navigation must be preserved, while expressing readiness to participate in coordinated efforts to reopen the Strait. Thereafter, France and the UK convened a series of international consultations involving 51 countries to develop a defensive escort framework for merchant vessels at an international summit in Paris in April 2026. The parties demanded an unconditional, unrestricted, and immediate reopening of Hormuz. This mission envisages the deployment of warships, mine-countermeasure vessels, and maritime surveillance aircraft following a sustainable ceasefire agreement. Europe thus settled on a clear sequence: keeping the strait open only after a lasting peace had been secured.
The EU’s diplomatic service also proposed that its ASPIDES mission take the primary role in mine-clearing operations in the Strait of Hormuz, as Europe’s contribution to the Franco-British-led initiative, once the US-Iran ceasefire materialised. Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands also indicated their willingness to contribute to a future multinational mission, albeit subject to parliamentary approval. Collectively, Europe’s response reflected a strategy that combined strategic autonomy, multinational burden-sharing, and maritime diplomacy, seeking to preserve critical energy and trade flows without transforming the crisis into a wider military confrontation.
Europe’s response shaped the Trump administration’s geopolitical calculations in three main ways. First, it signalled that Europe would not align itself with Washington’s coercive strategy. Second, it advanced an alternative maritime security architecture centred on de-escalation, geoeconomic stability, and the restoration of international legal norms. Third, it denied Washington the coalition legitimacy that might have offset the appearance of unilateral escalation. Without Europe — the United States’ oldest strategic partner — US naval operations risked appearing more unilateral, particularly as Europe was not consulted before or during the war. The crisis also exposed the vulnerability of US military and naval bases across the Gulf states — and, with it, the strain on the security guarantees that once underpinned the petrodollar system. In short, Europe’s response has reshaped the strategic equation.
The Road Ahead
The strategic landscape is being reordered, and Europe finds itself caught between two roles: the risk of entrapment — being drawn into a conflict not of its choosing — and the ambition to act as a norm entrepreneur, championing freedom of navigation and the rule of law at sea. It welcomed the mid-June 2026 ceasefire, a 14-point US-Iran memorandum of understanding that raised hopes for the strait’s reopening to commercial shipping and opened a 60-day window that included talks on Iran’s nuclear programme. That optimism proved short-lived. Fighting resumed in July, before a fragile pause that has taken hold in the final week of the month — one both sides have treated as provisional rather than a restored ceasefire. Shipping through the strait remains well below prewar levels, and European fuel markets have again come under strain after the brief relief the June deal provided.
The strategic landscape is being reordered, and Europe finds itself caught between two roles: the risk of entrapment — being drawn into a conflict not of its choosing — and the ambition to act as a norm entrepreneur, championing freedom of navigation and the rule of law at sea.
Although the United States and Iran remain the principal negotiating parties, Europe has attempted to carve out a complementary role: advocating strict implementation of any durable ceasefire, supporting freedom of navigation, and continuing to press for a Franco-British-led maritime security initiative built around ASPIDES. In practice, that initiative has largely stalled. The proposed Hormuz force remains contingent on a permanent ceasefire and on consent from Iran and Oman as the strait’s littoral states — consent Tehran has explicitly withheld, warning France and the UK that the strait is not a venue for military displays by outside powers. Even within the EU, member states remain divided over whether to expand ASPIDES’s mandate at all. The settlement, such as it is, remains fragile: mutual distrust between Washington and Tehran, unresolved questions over Iran’s nuclear activities, uncleared naval mines, insurance and shipping risks, Israel’s absence from the framework, and the lack of a comprehensive regional security architecture all continue to undermine its durability.
Preeti Borais a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Jamia Millia Islamia.
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Preeti Bora
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