Canada as a Stakeholder in the European Union's Arctic Policy : The Challenge of Multilevel Governance in a Region of Emerging Strategic Salience

The Communication on the Arctic Region, issued 20 November 2008 by the EU Commission to the European Parliament and the Council, proposes a more ambitiously conceived as well as a more effectively coordinated approach to Arctic policy issues by the EU. The Commission’s policy brief thus sets out the broad outline of the most probable dimensions and features of the European Union’s future initiatives with regard to Arctic-Region policies. Among the significant problems highlighted for EU action are those relating to international efforts to establish an enhanced regime of Arctic multilevel governance. This paper juxtaposes EU and Canadian interests and policy orientations with respect to multilateral, multilevel, and multi-stakeholder governance in the Arctic and identifies, on the one hand, issue-areas for readily achievable policy convergence and cooperation, and on the other, questions whose resolution will require a greater degree of creative diplomacy given the different perspectives at play. The analysis is set in a context of both the increasingly salient EU-Canadian efforts to negotiate more integrated and functional bilateral trade frameworks and agreements and the growing geostrategic importance of the Arctic