While the Arctic Council ministers are gathering in Reykjavik for a Ministerial meeting, the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute at the ICDS Tallinn presented its report about Estonian interests and opportunities in the Arctic.
The study was commissioned by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Estonian Parliament and presented at their public video sitting, now available on the Youtube channel of the Parliament (in Estonian). The study was introduced in the Parliament by its authors: Director of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute Kristi Raik, Research Fellow Frank Jüris, Research Fellow of the ICDS Tõnis Idarand and Associate Professor at the Department of Ethnology of the Institute of Cultural Research of the University of Tartu Aimar Ventsel.
The report brings out conclusions and gives clear recommendations why Estonia needs a broad-based Arctic strategy. Besides the Estonian perspective, the report also offers an overview of Russian, Chinese, US, Nordic, Japanese, EU, NATO and Arctic indigenous interests in the region and recent developments in the Arctic. It also offers a short theoretical framework on how to analyze the region through the concepts of governability, connectivity and geopolitical changes.
The report is initially available only in Estonian, an English version will follow in the first half of June.