9. Sustainable development in remote regions: integrating local leaders in EU policymaking
Jacqueline Götze, Anja Márjá Nystø Keskitalo, Elle Merete Omma and Dorothea Wehrmann
in: Hackenesch, C., Keijzer, N., & Koch, S. (Eds., 2024). The European Union’s global role in a changing world: Challenges and opportunities for the new leadership (IDOS Discussion Paper 11/2024). IDOS.
State of play
In times of prolonged and multiple crises, shared visions and established forms of cooperation are increasingly weakened, with serious implications for the pursuit of globally agreed environmental and sustainability goals. Notwithstanding the discursive shift from “development policy” to “international partnerships”, cooperation is and remains the backbone of the European Union (EU)’s development policy. Leaving no one behind (LNOB) is grounded in the United Nations normative standards and a guiding principle in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with regard to political action. The principle relates particularly to marginalised groups impacted by discriminatory policies, practices and laws, which often results from exclusion and weak consideration in policymaking processes. Also, with a view to EU Development Policy, the LNOB principle is intended to guide political action both within and outside the EU. The European Green Deal, however, is a telling example of how the EU risks falling short of this ideal.
Through the legislation enacted under the banner of the European Green Deal, the EU wants to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 and calls for an unparalleled effort to push for renewable energy promotion and electrification. To develop the resources needed for the “green transition” and at the same time to avoid becoming more dependent on autocratic states for the critical raw materials (CRMs) required, high hopes have been placed on the European Arctic due to its extensive deposits of CRMs, good conditions for wind and hydro energy and sparsely populated territories.
Yet, four million people live on and from Arctic lands, waters and resources, including Indigenous Peoples like the Sámi, the only indigenous peoples within the EU. The “people of the North” have often expressed the feeling of being dominated by actors located in “their South”: administrations based in distant capitals of the countries with territories in the Arctic, regional institutions like the EU and other “outside” actors that are not located in the Arctic regions. As a consequence of the EU’s policy ban on banning products from seals, for instance, the EU was not granted observer status to the Arctic Council, the main intergovernmental forum convening all countries with territories in the Arctic, because of the opposition expressed by Indigenous Peoples’ representatives.
To avoid compromising LNOB as a guiding principle for the Green Deal and its external dimension that is in part furthered under the EU’s development policy, we argue for greater integration and complementarity between external and internal perspectives. The EU has been accused of following double standards vis-à-vis its internal and external policies – also with regards to the LNOB principle. Current structures built and shaped by colonial legacies do not only influence societies outside Europe but also relationships between and within societies in the Union (Kinnvall, 2016), also in the European Arctic. To address interdependencies between internal and external policies in the area of development policy, we argue that the EU is not yet using the potential of its citizens including indigenous rightsholders (Åhrén, 2024) with local and Indigenous knowledge, which is crucial for the localisation of regional and global goals. Such internal consultations and alignment with local priorities are further essential to legitimise regional and global approaches, such as the European Green Deal and the positions introduced by the EU at international negotiations like the COPs (Conferences of the Parties) in the context of UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity).
Internal and external influences
“We’re understanding much more that if we want to have a say and if we want to have ownership and responsibility for our own lives, our own futures then we do need to understand that our existence is not just local, regional, or national. It is international and it is pan-Arctic.” (Representative of the municipal administration, Tromsø, interview 24 March 2023)
“The way that the Arctic could actually benefit from the current interest would be if it generates respect for a rights-based approach through an Indigenous Peoples’ perspective to the challenges we are up against.” (Åsa Larrson-Blind, Saami Council, 10 November 2021 at the EU Arctic Forum in Brussels)
These two quotes illustrate the strong interest expressed by representatives of sub-national governments and Sámi communities to contribute to policy- and decision-making processes that shape the places where they live. With the establishment of the Arctic Council in 1996, for the very first time Indigenous Peoples’ organisations received the status of permanent participants in an intergovernmental setting and have been integrated in the organisation and its knowledge production since. Due to that, at the regional level, the Arctic has often been portrayed as a frontrunner for the inclusion and consideration of diverse (non-)state perspectives, including those of Indigenous Peoples and other non-state actors from and beyond the Arctic regions. However, (potential) conflicts on the use of Arctic territories and waters have been mainly framed as conflicts between states, leaving intra-state disputes, the rights of Indigenous Peoples and their right to self-determination a matter to deal with by national governments and jurisdictions. Yet, many of the interrelated sustainable development challenges in the Arctic regions require cross-border and maritime cooperation as well as the alignment of policies across regions and governance levels: for instance, the expansion of renewable energies.
The disputed wind power plants on the Fosen Peninsula in Northern Norway/the Norwegian side of Sápmi (Sámi homeland) are a typical example in this regard. In a historic decision in 2022, the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled against the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. Windfarms had been built in an area where reindeer herding was practiced as a traditional livelihood and interfered in the traditional Sámi areas, violating the human rights of the Sámi. As this and other examples from the European Arctic show, local perspectives from the Arctic are not well integrated into policy- and decision-making processes affecting the land and sea use in the Arctic regions. In response, the people living in the Arctic regions increasingly use legal means to go against decisions by national governments. These intra-state disputes give leverage to the sentiment of Green Colonialism, understood as imperialistic efforts deployed to control the exploitation of nature and to capture values by actors located elsewhere. This sentiment impairs the reputation of national governments and those benefitting – from the energy developed on the Fosen Peninsula, from critical minerals extracted in Kiruna (on the Swedish side of Sápmi), or from iron ore reserves developed in Kolari (Finland). These intra-state territorial conflicts also empower those who see “Western double standards” and claim that resources are being developed at the expense of social and environmental sustainability goals (Vela Almeida et al., 2023).
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, not only geopolitical tensions but also the demand for critical raw minerals and (renewable) energy developed in Europe has significantly increased. Norway, for example, has become Germany’s biggest gas supplier since and the state-owned Swedish mining company LKAB proudly announced at the beginning of the Swedish EU Council Presidency 2023 that “[e]lectrification, the EU’s self-sufficiency and independence from Russia and China will begin in the mine” in Kiruna, which holds Europe’s largest known deposit of rare earth metals (LKAB, 2023). Kiruna is also home to two reindeer-herding communities which see their traditional livelihoods threatened by the current and potential new mine. Currently, at the EU level, there are no formalised channels for bringing Indigenous Peoples’ perspectives into policy- and decision-making processes (Götze, forthcoming). In light of the envisioned green transition, the EU’s engagement in the region should achieve a better complementarity between external and internal perspectives, avoid fuelling intra-state conflicts, and counter green colonialism and centre-periphery-thinking, inter alia by supporting the integration of diverse local perspectives into the set of values guiding cooperation with and between the EU’s member states (Methi & Wehrmann, 2023).
The EU-funded Arctic Urban-Regional Cooperation (AURC) launched in November 2023 is an important first step in this regard. The programme is the first of its kind to enable local authorities from like-minded Arctic countries to collaborate on sustainable urban and regional development challenges and solutions. Complementarily to the Arctic Mayors’ Forum (AMF), which was established by mayors from cities located in the Arctic in 2019, AURC provides a structure to facilitate peer-to-peer learning, to exchange experiences and practices, and to develop common perspectives, ideally making local perspectives more visible in multi-level governance, including policy- and decision-making in the EU. To integrate these perspectives into EU policy- and decision-making, however, formalised structures – so-called “third spaces” or “portals for knowledge exchange” (Patel, 2022) – are needed that facilitate the consideration and co-production of knowledges (Wehrmann et al., forthcoming).
Looking ahead
This contribution has analysed the growing and largely unintended incoherence between the EU’s commitment to LNOB and its energy-related geopolitical interests. We have argued that the incoming EU leadership should pursue an ambitious and inclusive strategy to support the pursuit of global goals and to rebuild or establish new forms of cooperation. Further, we emphasise that the successive crises encourage the reordering of priorities and the building of new partnerships, especially with those who have been “left behind” and who have had a limited voice in policymaking before, such as local leaders. The inclusion of local leaders (mayors and Indigenous Peoples’ representatives) holds great innovative potential to address the popular criticism of EU policies being abstract and toothless visions, as the such local leaders possess both the knowledge and the experience needed to develop context-sensitive policies which balance foreign, security, human development and economic interests. Their inclusion will strengthen not only the priorities and trust in EU Development Policy but also the democratic legitimacy and reputation of the EU, which has been criticized for applying double standards, for example in the wake of green transition policies (Nystø Keskitalo & Götze, 2023).
In a peripheral and sparsely populated region like the Arctic, limited infrastructure and connectivity weakens transregional and transnational cooperation. To travel from Tromsø, one of the largest and best-connected Arctic cities, to Brussels, it is not possible to take a train but necessary to fly via Oslo. Flying from Tromsø to Oslo takes as long as flying from Oslo to Brussels. Moreover, representatives of regions with a low population density are less in number and less considered in representative democracies. Limited human capacities further impede active engagement in policy- and decision-making processes.
As is also known from other remote regions beyond Europe and the Arctic, larger cities and municipalities that are better connected than smaller regions often become “gateways”. To mitigate this clubbing effect and the construction of “new peripheries”, EU development policy should develop mechanisms and spaces that secure the consideration of citizen and rightsholder perspectives affected by political actions pursued by the EU. Decision-makers should critically review how, and to what extent, the EU secures free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to leaving no one behind and protects the rights of Indigenous Peoples and minorities at the same time.
References
Åhrén, M. (2024). The relevance of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to vibrant, viable and sustainable Sámi communities. In D. Cambou & Ø. Ravna (Eds.), The significance of Sámi rights. Law, justice, and sustainability for the indigenous Sámi in the Nordic countries (Routledge Research in Polar Regions, pp. 5-21). Routledge.
Götze, J. (Forthcoming). Sámi-EU relations: Sámi participation in the EU as an example of indigenous peoples’ participation in transnational policy-making. Dissertation, University of Bonn.
Kinnvall, C. (2016). The postcolonial has moved into Europe: Bordering, security and ethno-cultural belonging. Journal of Common Market Studies, 54(1), 152-168. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12326
LKAB. (2023). Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth metals located in Kiruna area. https://lkab.com/en/press/europes-largest-deposit-of-rare-earth-metals-is-located-in-the-kiruna-area/ accessed 5 July 2024.
Methi, K. & Wehrmann, D. (2023). From Rovaniemi to Tromsø spirit? (The Current Column, 30 May 2023). IDOS. https://www.idos-research.de/en/the-current-column/article/from-rovaniemi-to-tromsoe-spirit/
Nystø Keskitalo, A. M., & Götze, J. (2023). A rights-based approach for implementing the European Green Deal. (The Current Column, 6 February 2023). IDOS. https://www.idos-research.de/en/the-current-column/article/a-rights-based-approach-for-implementing-the-european-green-deal/
Patel, Z. (2022). The potential and pitfalls of co-producing urban knowledge: Rethinking spaces of engagement. Methodological Innovations, 15(3), 374-386. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059799122112977
Vela Almeida, D., Kolinjivadi, V., Ferrando, T., Roy, B., Herrera, H., Vecchione Gonçalves, M., & Van Hecken, G. (2023). The “greening” of empire: The European Green Deal as the EU first agenda. Political Geography 105, 102925. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.102925
Wehrmann, D., Łuszczuk, M., Radzik-Maruszak, K., Götze, J. & Riedel, A. (Forthcoming). Sustainable urban development in the European Arctic. Routledge.
