Considering Geography in the New European Arctic Policy
The Arctic is back on the European political agenda, under the impetus given by the Finnish Presidency of the European Council. The European Union (eu) has been engaged in the Arctic since 2008 for environmental and geopolitical reasons. Based on a geopolitical method of analysis of eu documents and a series of mapped interviews, this article identifies some of the difficulties of eu’s Arctic policy. It examines a dimension rarely studied of eu’s action as an Arctic geopolitical actor: its denial of geography. After a review of the different stages of the European Arctic policy, the article analyses eu’s geopolitical positioning through these categories: legal institutions and competences, capacity for action, discourse and geographical representation. The article shows, through the case study of the fishing ban, the importance of the spatial articulation of a policy. Applied in general, this could help to formulate a European geopolitical thinking.