Next week, leaders from across the Pacific will gather in Honiara, Solomon Islands, for a meeting that could shape the region’s future for decades. The Pacific Islands Forum is poised to declare the Blue Pacific an “Ocean of Peace,” a symbolic gesture that arrives at a moment of both promise and peril for the region. As the world’s great powers jostle for influence and local communities face mounting challenges—from climate change to militarization—the Pacific stands at a crossroads. The choices its leaders make now will reverberate far beyond their shores.
On September 5, 2025, the European Union made waves with the announcement of a nearly €300 million investment package for the Pacific, unveiled by European Commissioner for International Partnerships Jozef Síkela. According to the European Union, this investment is designed to address Pacific priorities: "from climate resilience and sustainable oceans to renewable energy, digital sovereignty, and food security." Síkela emphasized, "These projects will bring tangible benefits for Pacific communities, while also opening new opportunities for Europe. This is what makes our cooperation different: long-term, win-win, and grounded in partnership of equals."
The investment is broad in scope, targeting strategic sectors vital to the region’s well-being and future development. The largest slice, €80.2 million, is earmarked for ocean, climate, and environment initiatives, with a focus on countries such as Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Wallis-et-Futuna. These funds aim to strengthen sustainability and climate-supportive businesses, recognizing the centrality of the ocean and environment to Pacific life.
Renewable energy is also high on the agenda. With €53.3 million allocated, the EU is supporting projects like a sustainable energy programme in the Solomon Islands, efficiency improvements in Tonga, and the construction of two solar power plants in Papua New Guinea. Water, sanitation, and hygiene sectors in Papua New Guinea and Samoa will benefit from €19 million, targeting clean water access and essential services.
Good governance and resilience-building are set to receive €50.9 million, with key initiatives planned for Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste. Agriculture, a lifeblood for many Pacific economies, will see €24 million directed toward strengthening value chains in Vanuatu and boosting Tuvalu’s coconut sector. Meanwhile, infrastructure investments worth €39.7 million are slated for projects such as the Fiu Bridge and Rabaul Port rehabilitation, as well as the construction of a port in Kiribati.
Trade and private sector development are not left out. The EU is injecting €26.8 million to bolster trade and promote the green and blue economy, including support for the Matanataki Fund—a woman-led private initiative focused on increasing climate resilience in Pacific Small Islands. There are also plans to establish a bilateral EU-Pacific entity focused on commerce and trade, with the EU-Pacific Business Forum set to convene every two years as a platform for deepening economic ties.
This sweeping investment is part of the EU’s Global Gateway strategy, which aims to mobilize up to €300 billion in public and private investments worldwide by 2027. The strategy’s goal, as the EU puts it, is to "reduce the worldwide investment disparity and boost smart, clean and secure connections in digital, energy and transport sectors, and to strengthen health, education and research systems." The EU presents this as a “Team Europe” approach, emphasizing partnership over dependency.
Yet, as the Pacific welcomes this wave of investment, it does so against a backdrop of intensifying geopolitical competition and growing unease about the region’s autonomy. Pacific historian Marco de Jong, speaking to Te Ao Māori News, notes that the region is experiencing an "unprecedented military build-up," driven by global conflicts such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the escalating rivalry between the United States and China. Ballistic missile tests, naval task forces in the Tasman Sea, and a "latticework of security mechanisms" have become features of the Pacific landscape.
Some of these arrangements are overtly strategic. The Nauru–Australia Security and Banking Agreement is designed to counter Chinese influence, while funding for Papua New Guinea’s National Rugby League team is reportedly conditional on PNG not signing a security pact with China. The Australia–Tuvalu Falepili Union, a climate adaptation and mobility deal, includes a security veto that restricts Tuvalu from entering agreements with other states without Australia’s approval. According to de Jong, "Increasingly we’re seeing an instrumentalised approach to Pacific regionalism that is focused on a broader geostrategic objective—the competition between the United States and China."
With the Ocean of Peace Declaration on the horizon, questions abound about whose vision of peace will prevail. During preliminary talanoa (wānanga), regional civil society groups raised concerns: what is peace without justice, without decolonization in West Papua, without nuclear justice for Māohi Nui, and without demilitarization of places like Hawai’i, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands? De Jong warns the declaration risks being "co-opted by powerful actors," pointing to Australia and New Zealand’s efforts to centralize control over regional peacekeeping through initiatives like the Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) and the Pacific Response Group (PRG).
The PPI, regionally endorsed and Pacific-designed, promises to "enhance the region’s ability to address security challenges" as outlined in the 2050 Blue Pacific Strategy and the 2018 Boe Declaration. Its plans include regional training centers and a multinational Pacific Police Support Group. The PRG, meanwhile, creates a Brisbane-based task force for crisis response. Yet, as de Jong argues, "The question is whether this is addressing the drivers of insecurity in our region, things like inequitable underdevelopment, climate breakdown, increasing political instability, and all the impacts that has at domestic and local levels."
The Pacific’s quest for peace is not new. Forty years ago, the Treaty of Rarotonga declared the region a nuclear-free zone, a milestone shaped by both hope and compromise. "Australia formulated the wording to account for US nuclear port visits, New Zealand gave support with the assurance that the United States would join, but that never happened," de Jong recalls. "So, when New Zealand went nuclear-free, it did so without the region and without the broader independence sentiment that drove the movement at large. The consensus then was nuclear-free; today it is peace. The region should not cease."
Pacific approaches to peace stretch back even further, rooted in traditions of consensus and respect. Fiji’s founding Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, spoke of the "Pacific Way" at the United Nations in 1970—an ethos that underpins peacebuilding milestones like Biketawa, Boe, Rarotonga, and the Blue Pacific Strategy. De Jong suggests the Ocean of Peace could go further by establishing its own conflict-resolution frameworks, rather than simply restating earlier commitments. "At the height of the Cold War, the Treaty of Rarotonga declared the region a nuclear-free zone. Now, forty years on, we have another generational opportunity to promote peace for and from the Pacific," he says.
Activism has long played a crucial role in shaping the region’s identity. The Pacific Peoples Anti-Nuclear Action Committee, founded in the early 1980s, connected activists across the islands and opposed French nuclear testing. Their pamphlet, Some Māori Thoughts on Peace, highlighted how global ideals often felt distant from daily struggles with racism and poverty in Aotearoa. "But we should be clear that what happens in the region affects us deeply here in Aotearoa," de Jong reflects. "We’re bound closely by demography, genealogy, and geography. New Zealand must act constructively—it can’t seek to manage or securitize the region. It won’t work, and I worry that’s what could happen with the Ocean of Peace Declaration."
As Pacific leaders prepare to chart a new course, the stakes could hardly be higher. With fresh investment on the table and old challenges unresolved, the region’s future will depend on its ability to balance opportunity with autonomy, and peace with justice. The world will be watching.
