Arctic Yearbook 2015 | Page 337

337 Arctic Yearbook 2015 deferred the controversial questions regarding the role of Observers and whether the EU should be granted Observer status to 2017 (Arctic Council 2015). This shows that the states were unable to reach an agreement about one of the more controversial matters in current Arctic Council politics and it seems reasonable to argue that the Ukraine crisis added an additional layer of complexity to the matter. However, had one of the states wanted to halt Arctic cooperation, protesting or blocking discussion of the Observer question altogether would have been a natural course of action. Bilateral cooperation a