In a cold seat

Why the EU’s bid for observer status in the Arctic Council is proving tricky.

For the European Union to gain a place at the table on Arctic issues means – at this point – one very specific thing: to gain permanent observer status at the Arctic Council, the leading forum for the region. 

In practice, this might not seem to change much. The EU already has ad hoc observer status, and the fundamental change – an obligation, rather than option, to make contributions to working groups – would not be an onerous adjustment. Given that the Council’s remit is technocratic – it does not include hard-power issues such as security and borders – there might not appear to be major cause for geopolitical anxiety in upgrading the EU’s status.

Nor would it seem to be a challenge to lobby for membership. The European Commission is a member of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, whose composition is broadly the same as the Arctic Council’s (minus Canada and the US); and in recent years the EU – as a bloc – has gained recognition as a member or observer at, for instance, the United Nations. Three of the Arctic Council’s eight members are member states of the EU (Denmark, Finland and Sweden), one has applied for membership (Iceland) and another is a member of the European Economic Area (Norway). A further six member states of the EU have permanent observer status: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK.

Yet the EU’s bid has become complicated and uncertain. That membership – a largely symbolic step, in many observers’ eyes – is not already agreed says something about the tensions of 2008. The EU was denied a seat in 2009. There had at one stage been a possibility that deputy foreign ministers of the Arctic Council’s states would recommend admission when they met last week (15 May); that did not happen. A decision will now be made in May 2013.

In effect, the forthcoming communication on the Arctic from the European Commission and the European External Action Service will, therefore, double as an informal application form. In the opinion of Gustaf Lind, Sweden’s ambassador on Arctic issues and the current chairman of the Council, what is important is for the communication “to show how much the EU can bring to the Arctic”.

American ambitions

The US is “quite keen” for the EU to become a member, says Andreas Østhagen of the Arctic Institute. Its Arctic policy, unveiled in the dying days of George W. Bush’s US presidency, is strong on multilateralism. Those who need convincing are therefore Canada, which has been angered by an EU ban on seal products, and Russia, which, Østhagen says, has been “sceptical from the start”. Vladimir Putin’s tough stance towards the West in the two weeks since he became president again – he has, for instance, refused to attend either a G8 summit or the NATO summit – does not augur well.

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But the EU’s difficulty in upgrading its status also says something about the growing pressure for membership, a pressure that demonstrates the diversity of interests in the region. In 2009, there were five applicants – all rejected – for permanent observer status (Italy, China, Japan and South Korea in addition to the EU); in 2013, one more country (Singapore) will be bidding for membership. Beyond that, there are other countries and organisations that may seek membership – among them, rumour suggests, Brazil and India. Given the pressures, the Council has drawn up specific rules of entry. Each applicant will be judged individually based on the rules, ministers say.

But each decision will ultimately also be political – and, Østhagen argues, it would be politically hard to admit the EU and not China. If so, that is a difficult twinning for the EU. Like the EU, China has big trading interests in the region (most immediately, Russia’s Arctic east) and big investments (in Canadian energy projects) and it is contributing substantially to research.

But China’s size, the uncertainty about its ambitions (China’s deputy foreign minister said in 2009 that “China does not have an Arctic strategy” and none has emerged since), its decision to equip its researchers with more icebreakers than the entire US fleet has, and its willingness to cold-shoulder Norway for the award of the Nobel peace prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo in 2010 have left other countries wary.

The EU will also be aware that Canada may again invoke the EU’s ban on the sale of seal products as a reason for excluding it (the ban is now subject to a World Trade Organization challenge).

Everything points in the direction of the EEAS’s communication-cum-application providing a comfort blanket, emphasising the contributions that the EU can make, including in areas that the Arctic Council covers, such as transport, fisheries, the environment and energy. In all of these areas, research will feature strongly.