| Summary: | Due to its unique characteristics such as strategic location and appearance, the Arctic is a natural area of great importance for the Earth and its biosphere. Because of climate change, it is increasingly warmer, and in the summer months almost ice-free. This presents big threats for flora, fauna, and mankind. At the same time, these changes provide great opportunities and development potential in terms of new sea trade routes, unexploited raw materials, strategic security advantages. The goal of this thesis is to find out which Arctic strategies the EU, USA, Russia, and China have adopted to deal with the changes in the Arctic. What are their main interests and goals? Is there cause to fear an open conflict or not? Furthermore, it provides an analysis of how the EU is preparing for the changing Arctic. The basic assumption of this thesis is rooted in political Realism and the associated geostrategic variety of Geopolitics. It contains a qualitative analysis, primarily critically analyzing existing literature, but also some primary published sources. The thesis concludes that the EU is already an Arctic actor, sharing partially similar goals for the Arctic as China, with a focus on the region’s economic development. Whereas Russia and the USA give, alongside the economic development, a more prominent role to defense and security matters. However, currently, there is no cause to fear an open armed conflict. Devido às suas características únicas, tais como localização estratégica e aparência, o Árctico é uma área natural de enorme importância para a Terra, e para a sua biosfera. Devido às alterações climáticas, é uma região cada vez mais quente, e nos meses de Verão já quase sem gelo. Isto comporta grandes ameaças para a flora, a fauna e a humanidade. Ao mesmo tempo, estas mudanças criam grandes oportunidades e potencial de desenvolvimento em termos de: novas rotas comerciais marítimas, matérias-primas não exploradas, vantagens estratégicas em termos de segurança. O objectivo desta tese é identificar as ...
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