EU’S ARCTIC POLICY AND POLICY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN ARCTIC: COMPARATIVE LEGAL ANALYSIS OF TOPICAL REGULATION ISSUES

The article is devoted to comparison of the basic legal documents of the European Union and the Russian Federation, defining their policies towards the Arctic. Having justified the relevance of the study both by growing interest of the international community towards the Arctic region, and by unique status of the EU (legal, geographic), author defines the subject of the research — the newest and fundamental documents of the EU (Joint Communication № JOIN(2021) 27 final) and the RF (presidential decrees № 184 and 645, Governmental Order № 996-r) concerning the Arctic. Both legal nature (status and role in policy regulation) and provisions (structure, contents) are researched. While considering structure and contents, author outlines 3 priority areas, which are common for the EU and the RF documents (ecology, social-economic development, international cooperation), analyzes and compares priority areas (in general), and their particular spheres. For each of the priority areas, features are highlighted, summarizing conclusions are made about the topicality, importance and emphases of the priority areas, about the uniqueness of their particular spheres for the documents of the EU and the RF. In a research context, not only the aforementioned documents, but also topical and relevant acts (treaties, normative legal acts of the EU and the RF) are studied. Based on the research results, author makes several general conclusions regarding the topical differences (role of the legal status, dominance of priority areas, emphasis on international cooperation, reliance on more general documents) and similarities of the EU’s and the RF’s Arctic policy documents.