The EU’s Arctic Policy: Between Vision and Reality

> The EU’s Arctic policy statements have so far been primarily aggregations of existing actions, wrapped in high-level rhetoric. > EU policy-makers have not yet developed a convincing Arctic narrative to broadly engage the EUropean public in Arctic matters. > Although no dramatic changes took place in the Arctic in the last years, security questions and high politics have become more visible. > The current main themes of the EU’s Arctic policy – climate, sustainable development and international cooperation – should be kept. Climate change should not be the only pillar of the EU’s Arctic engagement. Policymakers need to propose concrete future-oriented actions for issues such as marine litter. At the same time, the EU should not openly raise security questions. > To operationalize its policies, the EU should reconsider the current institutional set-up of its Arctic policy, including ways to involve the European Parliament and making inte