Arktisk politik og regimedannelse i 2010'erne
Recent developments have placed the High North on the international agenda. These include global warming, the prospects of major oil and gas finds, the opening of the Arctic Ocean to international shipping and the ongoing partition of its outer continental shelf between the five coastal states. In the so-called Ilulissat Declaration of 2008 these "Arctic Five" promised to play according to the UNCLOS rules and to shoulder their responsibility as coastal states. Despite this, the future may see both cooperation and conflict in the Arctic. The aim of the article is to discuss the possibilities of cooperative schemes, regimes, to regulate the problems which increasing shipping and extraction industries and fisheries may cause. First, a survey of future Arctic actors and fora is presented. While Arctic politics isstill dominated by the eight members of the Arctic Council, other actors, most clearly China, South Korea, Japan and the European Commission, are pressuring for influence. Furthermore, the Arctic Council is pressured by the "Arctic Five" and has reacted by establishing a secretariat and by adopting its first binding decision, anagreement on cooperation in search and rescue operations. Other relevant fora are the IMO, the WMO and UNCLOS. Next, an inventory of future "tasks" facing the Arctic nations is presented. They include defence tasks, sovereignty tasks, national authority tasks, and tasks, which can only (or best) be handled in regimes. Such regimes seem most needed with respect to international shipping. In the final section the discussion on possible regimes gets more concrete. Many tasks can best be handled by the IMO, but the Arctic Council, the WMO and UNCLOS have also roles to play. In particular, the five Arctic costal states have acrucial role as providers of specific regime services. Without their participation Arctic regime-formation is a non-starter,
Arctic Security in an Age of Climate Change
Part I. Introduction - Circumpolar Perspectives: 1. Arctic security: the indirect approach Franklyn Griffiths 2. The challenges and security issues of Arctic marine transport Lawson Brigham 3. Arctic meltdown and its implications for shipping and ports in Asia Joshua Ho Part II. European Security Interests in the Arctic: 4. Arctic security and Norway Rolf Tamnes 5. Norway and the Arctic: between multilateral governance and geopolitics Geir Flikke 6. Military aspects of Russia's policy: hard power and natural resources Katarzyna Zysk 7. The next geographical pivot: the Russian Arctic in the twenty-first century Caitlyn Antrim 8. The rise of the Arctic on the global stage Pauli Jarvenpaa and Tomas Ries 9. The Arctic challenge to Danish foreign and security policy Nikolaj Petersen 10. Arctic security - a Greenland perspective Adam Worm 11. Territorial discourses and identity politics: Iceland's role in the Arctic Valur Ingimundarson Part III. North American Security Interests in the Arctic: 12. Canada's security and foreign policy in the Arctic Robert Huebert 13. Polar race or polar saga? Canada and the circumpolar world Whitney Lackenbauer 14. American security in the Arctic James Kraska 15. Arctic security considerations and the US Navy's roadmap for the Arctic David W. Titley and Courtney St John.
Analysis: The Agenda 2007 Proposals: Evolution or Revolution?
On 10 February 2004 the Commission published its proposal for the financial perspective 2007-2013. A week later it adopted the third report on economic and social cohesion. These two documents form the basis of the so-called ‘Agenda 2007 reforms’. They will be the greatest challenge for the enlarged EU after the intergovernmental conference, since they will determine the financial basis for EU policy-making until the middle of the next decade. The Agenda 2007 proposals certainly hint at courageous reforms, because they place a previously unheard-of emphasis on performance and quality. Under the proposals, structural operations should generate value for money, and the funds should focus on projects which generate added value at a European level. Overall the Commission’s proposals point in the right direction, because they balance, on the one hand, solidarity for the new Member States and weak regions in the old Member States with, on the other hand, investments in future tasks. Moreover, they constitute a paradigm shift. For the first time, the Common Agricultural Policy will not be the dominant expenditure category. Now it is up to the Member States to examine the proposals politically and find a compromise between sometimes very divergent interests. It is to be hoped that, during the debate over expenditure limits and division of funds, national interests do not outweigh European interests.